



^ 



) 1^5 



LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE 

OF 

KICHAED WHATELY, D.D. 

LATE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 



'- T 



BY E/- JANE WHATELY, 

M 

AUTHOR OF ' ENGLISH SYNONYMS. 4 



NEW EDITION, IN ONE VOLUME, 









LONDON : 

LONGMANS, GEEEK, AND CO. 

1868. 







PREFACE 



THE SECOND EDITION. 



It m'7 be necessary to add a few words in explanation 
of what has been changed, and what left unchanged, in 
this Second Edition. 

For a book published in a smaller and cheaper form, 
it was important to condense as much as possible; and 
therefore a considerable number of Letters on political 
and other subjects, whose immediate interest has in some 
degree passed away, have been omitted, as less likely to 
interest general readers. Those who are desirous of fuller 
information on these subjects are referred to the larger 
work. 

A few additional pages of ' Table Talk,' which have 
been recently communicated to the Editor, are appended 
to this edition, to which she has added some recollections 
of her own. 

The Editor wishes distinctly to state that she is alone 
responsible for the Letters retained or omitted. 

E. Jane Whately. 

February 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEK I. 

1787—1821. 



PAGE 

His parentage and birth — Premature development of his tastes for 
mathematics and castle-building — His school days — Keeps a Com- 
monplace Book — His absence of mind early displayed — His intel- 
lectual characteristics — Enters Oriel College, Oxford — Influence of 
Dr. Copleston — Takes his degrees — His habits of intimacy with his 
pupils, and early friendships — Reminiscences of his pupils — Ordained 
deacon in 1814, and first public preaching— Bishop Hinds' recollec- 
tions of Mr. Whately, and interesting anecdotes — Dialogue in a stage 
coach with a Eoman Catholic farmer — Visits the Continent, and 
passes the winter in Portugal with his sisters — Eesumes his college 
duties on his return — His mode of teaching — Eeminiscences of the 
Eev. E. N. Boultbee — A table anecdote ...... 1 

CHAPTEE II. 

1821—1830. 

Commencement of his active literary career — A contributor to the 
'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana ' — His 'Historic Doubts respecting 
Napoleon Buonaparte ' and other works — His marriage — Appointed 
Bampton Lecturer — Eemoves to Halesworth — Illness of Mrs. Whately 
— Takes his D.D., and is appointed Principal of Alban Hall — 
Literary Society at Oxford — Testimony of Dr. Newman — of Dr. 
Mayo — Instances of his powers of anecdote and repartee — Letter to 
Dr. Copleston — His plan for educating his children — Sir Eobert Peel 
and Catholic Emancipation — Supports Sir Eobert, which leads to a 
breach with his early friends — Eupture with Dr. Newman — Elected 
Professor of Political Economy — Passing of the Catholic Emancipa- 
tion Bill — Interests himself for the re-election of Sir E. Peel — 
Publishes the 'Errors of Eomanism' — Letter on National Distress . 34 

CHAPTEE III. 

1831—1832. 

His appointment to the See of Dublin — Various opinions respecting 
his elevation — Appears at a Levee without his Order — Climbing 



YIL1 CCXSTTENTS. 



:. .:-z 
feats of his dog — Dissatisfaction at his elevation — Letter to Lady 
Mary Shepherd on his imputed Sabellianism — Letter to Bishop of 
Llandaff on his appointment to the Primacy — Starts for Dublin — 
Attacked by a Birmingham mob— -Marrow escape at Holyhead — 
State of Protestant Chnrch in Ireland — Question of Tithes — Arrives 
att r ablin — Enters on his official duties — His hospitable reception — 
His country house at Pedesdale — Anecdote of his rustic life — His 
simple tastes and pursuits — Apportions his time — His first Charge, 
and consequent exposure to public obloquy — Establishment of 
[National Education system — Benewed hostility to the Archbishop 
and his measures — Pounds a professorship c: Political Economy — 
His weekly levees — ._necdotes of his Confirmation tours — His 
monthly dinners — Anecdotes of his controversial powers, and of his 
efforts to suppress mendicancy — Letters :■: Miss Crabtree — Lt"t: 
to 3Ir. Senior on Secondary Pnnishnif :::s — His :: /:.: : us vi S -. ; ■ : v:~ 
Punishments — Letter to Sir T. Denman on same subject . 

CHAPTER IV. 

1SSS — 15S-5. 

Rev. J. Blanco White resides with the Archbishop, and is appointed 
tutor to the Archbishop's family — Letter to Mr. Badeley on the 

Clerical Society — Letter to the Howard Society on the penalty of 
Death — Takes his seat in Parliament — Speeches on Irish Education 
and Irish Emancipation — Retirement of Dr. Hinds, and appointment 
of Dr. Dickinson as his successor — Associated with Archbishop 
Murray in Commission of Enquiry on Irish Poor — Establishment of 
a Divinity College — Letters to and from Dr. levman respecting 
their differences of opinion on Church matters — Mr. Blanco White, 
embracing Socinian views, retires from the Archbishop's family — 
Grief on this account manifested by the Archbishop, who sub- 
sequently pensions ]VIr. White — Letters to Eev. J. Blanco White on 
his Unitarian views, and consequent secession from the Chnrch . 93 

CHArTHPi V. 

1835—1837. 

Visits Tunbridge Wells— Visit of Dr. Arnold— Pressed by Mr. Senior 
to exchange for. an Kn gKwh bishopric; — Letter to Mr. Senior on the 
subject — His vir^s on the importance of moral over intellectual 
education — Letter to ]\Ir. Senior — Letter to Bishop of Llandaff on 
L'niversity Examinations — Letter to a clergyman on Beligion — 
Letters to Eev. J. Tyler on Invocation of Saints, &c. — Letter to 
Bishop of Norwich on Irish Church questions — Letter to Blanco 
White, and generous concern for his welfare — Letter to Dr. Dickin- 
son on Abolition of Superfluous Oaths — Letter to Lord John Russell 
— Letter to a Lady on State of Ireland — Table Talk: on Tractarian- 
ism — Letter to Mr. Senior on Colonisation — Petition to the Queen 
on Administration of Oaths by Chancellor of the Order of St. Patrick 114 



CONTEXTS. IX 

CHAPTER VI. 
1838—1839. 

PAGE 

Letter to Br. Arnold on the London University — Bedsits Oxford — 
Letter to Mr. Senior — Letters to Rev. Baden Powell on his work 
1 Tradition Unveiled ' — Letter to Rev. Br. Dickinson — Starts on a 
Continental tour — Visits the field of Waterloo — Conversation with 
the King of the Belgians — Letter to Br. Bickinson on Switzerland 
and Italy — Makes the acquaintance of M. Sismondi — Letter to Mr. 
Senior on c Travelling " — Disappointed at the failure of his scheme 
for a new Divinity College — Misrepresentations of the scheme — 
Returns to Dublin — Letters to Mr. Senior on Various subjects — 
Uiged by his friends to attend Parliament — Letter to Miss Crabtree 
— Madame Pabre translates the "' Lessons on the Evidences of 
Christianity' — Letter to M. Fabre on the translation . . .139 

CHAPTER VII. 

1840—1841. 

Letter to Dr. Hinds on 'Tradition,' &c. — Attends Parliament — Letter- 
to Mr. Senior on his Parliamentary attendance — Letters to Dr. 
Dickinson — Letter to a clergyman soliciting for a parish — Intro- 
duced to M. G-uizot — Hints to Transcendentalists — Visits Tenby — 
Letter to Dr. Hinds on Church History — Renewed intercourse with 
31. Sismondi — Letter to 3Ir. Senior — Letter to Lady Osborne on her 
praying for the Archbishop — Appointment of Dr. Dickinson to the 
Bishopric of 3Ieath — Letter to Bishop of Norwich — Letter on the 
elevation of Dr. Dickinson — Dissolution of Parliament — Letter to 
3Ir. Senior — Letter to Bishop of Norwich — Letter to Dr. Hinds on 
' Absolution ' and on Fairy Tales — Letter to 3Ir. Senior on the merits 
of two anonymous personages — Letter to Bishop of Llandaff — Letter 
to 3Iiss Crabtree on a mathematical question — Accident to 3Irs. 
Whately — Letter to Bishop of Llandaff — Letter to 3Ir. Senior on 
'Tract No. 90' — Interview with Dr. Pusey — Death of his friend 
Bianco "White — Visits Ems with his family — Letter to Dr. West . 160 

CHAPTER VIII. 
1842—1847. 

Deaths of Dr. Arnold and Dr. Dickinson — Publication of Dr. Arnold's 
Sermons. <5cc. — Appointment of Dr. Hinds to living of Castleknock 
— Visits Dr. A.'s Eamily — Anecdotes of the Archbishop — 'life of 
Blanco White ' — Attends the Parliamentary Session — Letters to Rev. 
A. P. Stanley and 3Irs. Arnold relating to Dr. Arnold's Works — 
Letter to Lady Osborne — Triennial Visitations of the Archbishop — 
Conversation with his Clergy on the importance of studying the 
Irish Language — Spiritualism — Letter on Animal Magnetism — 
Tribute to Bishop Copleston — Letter to same — Anecdote of Mrs. 
Whately: the poor sick woman and her cleanliness — The tour to 

a 



CONTENTS. 



PAOE 

Switzerland — Eeminiscences of the visit by Mr. Arnold — Anecdotes 
of the Archbishop — Distress in Ireland — The Archbishop's munifi- 
cence — His measures for relief — Attends the Session of 1847 — 
Letter to Mr. Senior on the distress — Bill for Out-Door Belief in 
Ireland — Letter to Mrs. Arnold — Letter on translation of the Works 
of George Sand — Formation of the Statistical Society — Interest taken 
by the Archbishop in the Society . . . . . . .191 

CHAPTEE IX. 

1848—1851. 

Marriage of his third Daughter — Paper on Public Executions — Letter 
to Dr. Hinds on Religious Difficulties — Eamily anxieties of the 
Archbishop — Illness of his son — Accompanies his family on their 
journey to Nice, but leaves them at Paris — Letters to Mrs. Hill on 
literary matters — Spends part of the summer with his family at 
Cromer — Miss Anna G-urney — His friendship for Mrs. Hill — Letter 
to Mrs. Arnold — The Papal Aggression — Publishes the ' Cautions 
for the Times ' — Correspondence with the Bishop of Oxford on the 
Papal Aggression — Letter to Mrs. Hill — Letter to Dr. Hinds on the 
Marriage Laws — His suggestions for a Universal Coinage — Father 
Ignatius — His Interview with the Archbishop — Letter to Mrs. Arnold 
on the State of Ireland — Letter to Mrs. Arnold on her Proposal to 
answer the 'Creeds of Christendom ' — Attends the Session — Harassed 
by Family Anxieties — Letter to Mrs. Hill on the Spread of Mor- 
monism 220 

CHAPTEK X. 

1852. 

Visits England — The family circle at Redesdale — Letter to C. Wale — 
Letter to Lady Osborne on the ' Sisterhoods ' at Plymouth and 
Devonport — Letter to Dr. Hinds on Daily Services— Letter to Miss 
Crabtree — Opening of the Cork Exhibition — Letters to Mrs. Hill — 
His interest in Protestant Missions to Ireland — Letter to Mr. Senior 
on the Conversions from Eomanism — Mr. Senior visits the Arch- 
bishop— Mr. Senior's Journal 256 

CHAPTEE XL 

1853. 

Letter to Mr. Senior on Thackeray's Novels — Withdraws from the 
National Education Board — Letter of Condolence to Dr. Hinds — 
Letter to Mrs. Hill — Visits his Daughter in Cambridgeshire — Letter 
to Mrs. Arnold — Letter to Miss G-urney on the Jewish Emancipa- 
tion Bill — Return to Dublin — Letter to Dr. Daubeny on Botanical 
Subjects — Letter to Miss Crabtree — Publishes the 'Hopeful Tracts ' 
— Letters to Mrs. Hill — His inner life — Persecutions of Protestant 
Converts in Workhouses — Letter to Mr. Senior — Letter to- Mrs. 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGE 

Arnold — Letter to Dr. Daubeny — Letter to Mr. Senior — Takes a 
prominent part in the Petition for [Registration and Inspection of 
Nunneries 279 

CHAPTEK XII. 

1854—1855. 

Letters to Mr. Senior on Thackeray's Works, &e. — Publishes the 'Re- 
mains' of Bishop Copleston — Letters to Mrs. Arnold — Letter to 
Mrs. Hill — Letter to C. Wale, Esq.— Letters to Mrs. Hill — Letters 
to Mr. Senior on his ' Sorrento ' Journal — Letter to Mrs. Hill — 
Letter to Mr. Senior on his Keview of ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' — Extract 
from a letter on 'Slavery' — Publishes the 'Lessons on Morals' — 
Letter to Mrs. Hill — Letter to Mr. Senior — Publishes his edition of 
'Bacon's Essays with Annotations' — Letters to Mrs. Hill — His 
illness — Attacked by Paralysis . 301 

CHAPTEE XIII. 

1857—1859. 

Appointment of Dr. Fitzgerald to the See of Cork — Letter to Mr. 
Duncan — Letter to Mr. Senior on opening Places of Public Recrea- 
tion on Sundays — Death of the Eev. Henry Bishop —Letter to Miss 
Crabtree — Letter to Mrs. Hill — Letter to Mr. Senior — Meeting of 
the British Association at Dublin — Interested in Dr. Livingstone's 
Plans — Accident to the Archbishop — His great Interest in Missions 
— Dangerous Illness of his eldest Grandchild — Visit of Mr. Senior 
— Extracts from his Journal — Letter to Mr. Senior on ' Book grants ' 
from the Education Board — Letter to Miss Crabtree on the Revival 
Movement — His family bereavements — Death of his youngest daugh- 
ter — Death of Mrs. Whately — Letters to Miss Crabtree and Dr. Hinds 
— Breaking up of his family circle — Spends the summer with Mr. 
Senior — Letter to Mrs. Arnold 323 

CHAPTEE XIV. 

1862—1863, 

Suffers from neuralgic gout — Attends the Session of the Statistical 
Society, and contributes a paper on Secondary Punishments — Letter 
to C. Wale, Esq. — Visit of Mr. Senior — Extracts from Mr. Senior's 
Journal — Experiments on Charring — Conversation on Roman prose- 
lytising — Eemarks on the falsehood of commonly received maxims — 
Visit of Dr. de Eicci, and interesting conversation on religious en- 
dowments — Q-radual decline of the Archbishop — Visit of his sister- 
in-law — Journal of the Eev. H. Dickinson — His last Charge — 
Presides at the monthly dinner to his Clergy — Increase of his bodily 
sufferings — Interesting conversation with Mr. Dickinson — Appre- 
hensions respecting his state of health — Continued interest in literary 
pursuits — Tender attentions of his family in his last moments— His 



Xll CONTEXTS. 



PAGE 

patient resignation — His delight in the Eighth of Eonians— Receives 
the Lord's Supper with his family — Progress of the disease and 
great physical suffering — Parting interview with his favourite grand- 
child — Visited "by Mrs. Senior — His anxious desire to die — His 
death — Lines on his death ........ 345 



TABLE TALK. 

Miscellaneous Reminiscences by the Editoe . . . .367 

Ee:miniscences by his Son, the Eev. Edwaed Whately, Eectoe of 
St. "Weebuegh's, Dublin .385 

Miscellaneous Recollections by Eev. Hercules H. Dickinson. MA... 
Vicae of St. Ann's y Dublin 421 

Notes feoai the Eecollections of an old Oxford Pupil of 
Archbishop TVhately's 438 

Notes by W. Bbooke, Esq 440 

Feom a Eeiend 441 

To these Notes the "Whites adds a fey>~ Eeiiiniscences of hee 
own - 445 

Eeiiiniscences by the late Edward Senior, Esq., P.L.C. . . 448 

Table Talk 450 

Sketch of the Chaeactee of Archbishop Whately, by one yvho 
had knov>n t hbi intimately and obseeved hill closely . .465 

List of the "Writings of De. Whately 472 



LIFE AND EEMAINS 



ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 



CHAPTER I. 

1787—1821. 

His parentage and birth — Premature development of his tastes for mathe- 
matics and castle-building — His school days — Keeps a Commonplace Book 
— His absence of mind early displayed — His intellectual characteristics — 
Enters Oriel College, Oxford — Influence of Dr. Copleston — Takes his 
degrees — His habits of intimacy with his pupils, and early friendships — 
Reminiscences of his pupils — Ordained deacon in 1814, and first public 
preaching — Bishop Hinds' recollections of Mr. Whately, and interesting 
anecdotes — Dialogue in a stage-coach with a Roman Catholic farmer — 
Visits the Continent, and passes the winter in Portugal with his sisters — 
Resumes his college duties on his return — His mode of teaching — Remi- 
niscences of the Rev. R. N. Boultbee — A table anecdote. 

• The subject of this memoir was the youngest of the nine 
children of the Eev. Dr. Joseph Whately, of Nonsuch Park, 
Surrey, and Prebendary of Bristol — also Vicar of Widford 5 
and Lecturer at G-resham College. Before proceeding to 
detail his personal history, a few words respecting his 
family may not be out of place. The Whately family num- 
bered in its ancestry some persons of note ; among them 
was the famous ' painful preacher' of Banbury, a puritan 
divine of some eminence, whose Treatise on the New Birth 
is still extant. 

The father of Dr. Joseph Whately connected himself by 
marriage with the Thompson family, of which Lord Ha- 
versham 1 was the head, and some members of which had 

1 Sir John Thompson, Bart., created Baron Haversham, Bucks, in 1696. 
Extinct in his son, 1745. 

B 



♦2 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1787 

been distinguished, on the side of the Parliament, in the 
civil wars. His wife appears to have been a remarkable 
woman ; her portrait by Eomney, now in the possession of 
one of her great-grandsons, gives the impression of a mind 
of no ordinary stamp; and she was regarded by her chil- 
dren with deep reverence. She had three sons. *One of 
them (Thomas) was private secretary and confidential 
friend to Greorge Grenvilie, and afterwards Under-Secre- 
tary of State, M.P. for Castle Eising, and (to use the 
singular title of his office given in the ' Gentleman's 
Magazine') ' Keeper of His Majesty's private Roads, and 
Guide to the Eoyal Person in all Progresses.' It was He to 
wiioni Hutchinson and v Oliver addressed from Massachu- 
setts those celebrated letters which got, by unfair means, 
into the hands of Franklin, and produced so great an effect 
at the outbreak of American discontent. On his death, in 
1772, his brother William became lawful owner of these 
papers, and thought himself obliged to fight a duel with 
Mr. John Temple on account of them. 1 Thomas Whately 
was the author of an 'Essay on Modern Gardening' (1770) 
of which the Archbishop says that he believes 2 him to have 
been 'the earliest writer on the subject. From his work 
subsequent writers have borrowed largely, and generally 
without acknowledgment. The French poet De Lille, 
however, in his poem " Des Jardins," does acknowledge 
him his master.' 3 He also wrote ' Remarks on some of 
the Characters in Shakspeare,' re-edited by the Arch- 
bishop.* 

Dr. Joseph Whately (the third) was married to Miss 
Jane Plumer, one of the three daughters of W. Plumer, 
Esq., of Gilston, and also of Blakesware Park, Herts. This 
last, an ancient dower-house, where the widow of Mr. 
Plumer resided with her daughters, is interesting from the 
notice of it in Charles Lamb's Essays. Lamb's grand- 

1 See Lord Stanhope's ' History of England,' c. 50. 

* This appears to be an error. A work on the subject was published in 
London in 1728, by Batley Langley. 

3 'Annotations on Bacon,' Essay xlvi. ' On Gardens.' 

* H.M. 



Mt. 1] HIS PAREXTAGE AND BIRTH. 

mother, Mrs, Field, was the housekeeper, and every reader 
of ' Elia ' will remember the allusions in it to early recol- 
lections of this place, now pulled down. 

Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Whately were the parents of nine 
children, five daughters and four sons, all of whom lived to 
maturity, and most of them to old age. 

The eldest son, William, was early engaged in business, 
afterwards turned his attention to law, married late in life, 
and died without children a few years after. The second, 
Thomas, was appointed to the living of Cookham, near 
Maidenhead, and afterwards to Chetwynd in Shropshire; 
he married a sister of Charles first Earl of Cottenham, and 
survived his brother Eichard only six months, dying at the 
age of ninety-one, and leaving a numerous family. 

The third, Joseph Thompson, married an heiress, the 
daughter of T. Halsey, Esq., of Gaddesden, Herts, took the 
name of his w 7 ife, and died in 1818, leaving four children. 

Of the five daughters, the eldest died in the prime of 
life; the fourth and only surviving one is the widow of the 
late Sir David Barry, 1 an eminent physician; the three 
others died unmarried at an advanced age. 

Eichard, the youngest child, w^as born on the 1st of 
February 1787, in Cavendish Square, at the house of his 
maternal uncle, Mr. Plumer, then M.P. for Hertfordshire. 
His birth took place six years after that of the next 
youngest child, w T hen the family had been long supposed 
complete, and the c nursery ' in the house had ceased to 
exist. The arrival of the new-comer was an unlooked-for 
and scarcely a welcome event. He w T as feeble in health, 
and his slight and puny appearance must have strangely 
contrasted with the powerful, tall, and well-proportioned 
form of his maturer age. His friends have often heard 
him remark, that the earliest event of his life was his being 
weighed against a turkey, to the advantage of the bird ; 
and that he never in childhood knew what a really healthy 
appetite w r as ; the sensation of hunger w r as to him some- 
thing new and strange, when he first felt it as a boy of 
eleven or twelve. 

1 Since deceased. 
B 2 



4 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [L793 

In disposition he was shy, timid, and retiring ; he knew 
little of the high spirits and playfulness of early childhood, 
and the society of children of his own age was actually dis- 
tasteful to him. From all company he shrank with a 
nervous dread; and would often in after-life express won- 
der at the pleasure which children and young people 
usually take in social intercourse, and the desire of notice 
which they manifest. 

In his own family he met with most attentive personal 
care from his elder sisters ; but none of his brothers were 
sufficiently near him in age to be his companions, and his 
early tastes and pursuits were not likely to meet with gene- 
ral sympathy or appreciation. He learned to read and 
write very early, and read with avidity ; but his great de- 
light was in the observation of nature. He would spend 
hours in the garden, watching the habits of spiders, taming 
young ducklings, and carrying them in his hand to pick 
snails from the cabbages, learning to distinguish notes of 
birds, &c. And to the results of these early observations 
he would often allude in after-years. 

But his most remarkable early passion was for arith- 
metic. In this he displayed a singular precocity. At six 
years old he astonished his family by telling the celebrated 
Parkhurst, his father's near neighbour and intimate friend, 
and a man of past sixty, how many minutes he was old. 
His calculations were tested, and found to be perfectly 
correct. But an extract from his Commonplace Book 
will best give an idea of this curious episode of his early 
life. 

Q There certainly was,' he writes, 6 something peculiar in 
my calculating faculty. It began to show itself between 
five and six, and lasted about three years. One of the 
earliest things I can remember is the discovery of the 
difference between even and odd numbers, whose names I 
was highly delighted to be told ; I soon got to do the most 
difficult sums, always in my head, for I knew nothing of 
figures beyond numeration, nor had I any names for the 
different processes I employed. But I believe my sums 
were chiefly in multiplication, division, and the rule of 



jEt. 6] HIS EARLY PASSION FOR FIGURES. 5 

three. In this last point I believe I surpassed the famous 
American boy, though I did not, like him, understand the 
extraction of roots. I did these sums much quicker than 
any one could upon paper, and I never remember committing 
the smallest error. I was engaged either in calculation or in 
castle-building (which I was also very fond of) morning, 
noon, and night; and was so absorbed as to run against 
people in the streets, with all the other accidents of absent 
people. 

6 My father tried often, but in vain, to transfer my 
powers to written figures ; and when I went to school, at 
which time the passion was worn off, I was a perfect dunce 
at cyphering, and so have continued ever since. Thus w 7 as 
I saved from being a Jedediah Buxton, by the amputation, 
as it were, of this overgrown faculty. For valuable as it- 
is in itself, it would have been a heavy loss to have it 
swallow up the rest. It was banished by a kind of ostra- 
cism, as the best of the Athenian citizens were, for the 
benefit of the community.' 

Thus far his own words. He has often remarked that 
he would at that time have been perfectly happy shut up 
in the Bastile, if permitted to follow his favourite pursuit 
undisturbed. 

At the time he went to school, which was at about nine 
years old, this passion died away, and, as he subsequently 
thought, he then learned arithmetic slowly and with diffi- 
culty. He alwa3^s looked on himself as a dunce in that 
line, though the readiness with which he solved curious 
problems and arithmetical puzzles would often surprise and 
baffle first-class mathematicians. The clearness of his ex- 
planations of the processes of arithmetic was always re- 
markable; but he never was distinguished as a mathe- 
matician at college. 

But the other taste which he alludes to in the fragment 
given above — that for ' castle-building ' — remained, and 
became more fully developed. His were not the usual 
childish flights of fancy, but rather visionary speculations 
on a variety of abstract subjects, metaphysical, political, 
and ethical; fancied schemes for ameliorating the world, 



6 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1796 

ideal republics, &c In those early days, when his absence 
of mind excited laughter, and it would be. half pityingly, 
half sontemptuousty, prophesied by his friends that he 
would f never be able :; make his way in the world.' the 
mind of the boy was preoccupied with conjectures and 
speculations, which have ;:;en found place in the writings 
:: philosophers :: maturei age. He himself has related 
how, while still a child, it occurred to him that the con- 
sciousness :: brutes must be analogous to that of human 
beings in a dream, when the " : wei :: : )stn ;:ion at plea- 
sure is gone. 

This view he confirmed in later life : but with regard ; 

_ 

many theories of government, civilisation, &c, he was ac- 
customed to remark. •' I went through that when I was 
twelve; such a systei n I thought out when I was thirteen 
;: fourteen, 5 and so on. His family afterwards regretted 
that he had not been sent to a public school; but whether 
this would have suited his peculiar cast >f mind so well as 
the training he was thus unconsciously giving himself. may 
perhaj - . e 1c ul 

At the age of nine he was se nt _ : ~1- school of a ZNIr. 
Philips, in the neighbourhood of Bristol. This school in 
great measure determined the friendships and connections 
of his subsequent life. With one of hi- schoolfel 
in particular (Mr. J. Parsons, afterwards son-in-law - 
Mr. Philips) he formed a close intimacy, which was only 
dissolved by death; and through this early friend he ~ 
afterwards brought into intimate relations with others who 
attended the same school after he left; among the prin- 
cipal of these were Mr. Rowe and Dr. Hinds. Mr. 
Philips's school was much resorted to by West Indians, 
and this gave him a familiarity with the customs and 
habits of the West Indies, which often appeared in his 
conversation and writings. The smallest incident which 
tended to throw light on national peculiarities, climate, w 
institutions, had always a peculiar interest for him. and was 
stored \ in his memory from the time he heard it. 
his master he often spoke afterwards 
his personal influence over hi - — an influence 



&t. 9] SCHOOL DAYS. 7 

which did not spring from any extraordinary talent, but 
from some nameless power or quality in him, which 
certainly conduced in no small degree to the general good 
conduct and order of the school. 

In his Commonplace Book allusions will be found to his 
leading the sports of his companions ; but, on the whole, 
his school-life does not appear to have been a happy one. 
His thoughtful and meditative turn of mind was hardly 
fitted for ordinary schoolboy contact. Much of his leisure 
time was spent, as it had been at home, in solitary wander- 
ings and observations in natural history ; he would delight 
in straying over a common near the playground, watching 
the habits of the sheep, and trying to tame them, and 
other similar occupations. 

At ten years old he lost his father, the one of his family 
best able to appreciate his powers and peculiar turn of 
mind. This early bereavement he always deplored, and 
ever retained a lively recollection of conversations with his 
father, even at that early period. 

Mrs. Whately removed with her five daughters and 
youngest son to Bath, where she passed the remainder of 
her life. 

Of the period just preceding his entrance into college 
scarcely any records remain. His habits of solitary re- 
flection and his interest in natural science appear to have 
been the same all along. Of fishing he was particularly 
fond. Throughout life, he retained his love for active 
exercise in the open air. His only surviving sister recol- 
lects another trait — the kind and unselfish consideration 
which made him, then and later, take pains to procure 
her horses and to ride with her, horse exercise being 
recommended for her health. 

Though a most acute and watchful observer, where any 
principle was to be illustrated or induction made, he saw 
little at other times of what passed around him. His 
mind was eminentlv concentrative, and he often remarked 
in later life that, inconvenient as this habit was to him, 
he still owed everything in life to it. It enabled him to 
bring all his mental powers to bear on the subject before 



8 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1803-5 

hirn, but, on the other hand, it made the operation of 
turning from one topic to another more intensely and pain- 
full)" difficult ; and thus naturally produced the absence 
of mind referred to, which was one of his most remarkable 
characteristics, especially in the early period of his life. 
*He speaks with regret, in his Commonplace Book (1812), 
of his deficiency in the quality which he terms Curiosity. 
6 By this means/ he says, 'I believe I lose more amuse- 
ment, and suffer more inconvenience, than if I was indif- 
ferent to many dignified and excellent subjects of enquiry 
which I delight in. I have no relish for ordinary chat, 
which consists in the reciprocal gratification of the above - 
passion ; nor, consequently, for the company of a great 
part of the world, who have little to say that has anything 
but novelty to recommend it. It gives me no pleasure to 
be told who is dead, and who married, and what wages 
my neighbour gives his servants. Then, for the incon- 
venience, I am ignorant of the streets, and shops, and 
neighbouring villages of the town where I live. I very 
often know a man, without being able to tell any more 
about his country, family, etc., than if he had dropt from 
the skies. Nor do I even know, unless I enquire and 
examine diligently, and with design, how far it is from 
one place to another, what hour the coach starts, or what 
places it passes through. I am frequently forced to evade 
questions in a most awkward manner, from not daring to 
own, nor indeed able to convince any one of, my own in- 
credible ignorance. If I had had no uncle or aunt, I should, 
probably, have been ignorant of my mother's maiden name.' 
* These prefatory remarks may serve to introduce the 
reader to a few of those peculiar characteristics of his 
mind and of his labours, which will be more fully de- 
veloped in the course of the correspondence now laid 
before him. From the beginning, and emphatically, 
Whately was a thinker. His favourite authors were few: 
Aristotle, Thucydides, Bacon, Bishop Butler, Warburton, 
Adam Smith ; these were, perhaps, his principal intimates 
among great writers; and it will be easily seen that they 
are among the most ' suggestive ;' among those who could 



Mr. 16-18] INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS. 9 

furnish the most ready texts on which his ruminating 
powers might be expended. But one unavoidable result 
of this comparative want of reading, in one who thought 
and wrote so much, was, that he continually stumbled 
upon the thoughts of others, and reproduced them in per- 
fect honesty as his own. This was one of his character- 
istics through life. It is singular to read one of his early 
critics 1 commenting on his tendency to reproduce the 
' commonplace of other writers, not unfrequently, without 
an apparent consciousness of their ever having seen the 
light before ;' while one of his latest, Mr. Stuart Mill, 
. speaking of his philosophical investigations, says that 'of 
all persons in modern times, entitled to the name of 
philosophers, the two, probably, whose reading was the 
scantiest, in proportion to their intellectual capacity, were 
Archbishop Whately and Dr. Brown. But though indo- 
lent readers they were both of them active and fertile 
thinkers. 5 * 

*Activity and fertility were certainly, beyond all others, 
the characteristics of Whately 5 s intellect. As in the early 
school and Oxford days, of which we are now writing, so 
down to his latest times, the daily occupation of his brain 
was to seize on some notion of what he considered a prac- 
tical order, belonging to any one of the various subjects 
with which his mind occupied itself ; to follow it out to 
its minutest ramifications, and to bring it home with him, 
turned from the mere germ into the complete production. 
And this perpetual ' chopping logic with himself he car- 
ried on not less copiously when his usually solitary walks 
were enlivened by companionship. His talk was rather 
didactic than controversial ; which naturally rendered his 
company unpopular with some, while it gave him the 
mastery over other spirits of a different mould. ' His real 
object, or his original objects, 5 writes one of his earliest 
and ablest friends, ' was to get up clearly and beat out 
his ideas for his own use. Thus he wrote his books. Mr. 
R., lately dead, who was junior to Whately as a fellow of 
Oriel, told me that, in one of his walks with him, he was 

1 'British Critic,' 1828, on his < Difficulties of St. Paul.' 



10 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP "WHATELY. [1805 

so overcome by Whately' s recurrence, in conversation, to 
topics which he had already on former occasions insisted 
on, that he stopped short, and said, " Why, Whately, you 
said all this to me the other day;" 5 to which Whately 
replied to the effect that he would not be the worse for 
hearing it many times over.' * 

In the company of a few chosen friends he delighted ; 
but the intercourse with general society, and the ordinary 
routine of a town life, were to him irksome in the extreme. 
He was then, and even later, most painfully shy ; and the 
well-meant efforts of his friends to correct this defect, by 
constantly reminding him of the impression he was likely 
to make on others, served to increase the evil they were 
intended to combat. In the pages of his Commonplace 
Book he records how at last he determined to make a 
bold effort, and care nothing for what others might be 
thinking of him ; and, to use his own words, ' if he must 
be a bear, to be at least as unconscious as a bear.' And 
the effort succeeded. The shyness passed away; and 
though his manners might have still a certain abruptness 
and peculiarity about them, the distressing consciousness 
which made life a misery was gone. That this was no tri- 
fling hindrance removed from his path, was attested by his 
frequent emphatic remark in later years : ' If there were 
no life but the present, the kindest thing that one could do 
for an intensely shy youth would be to shoot him through 
the head ! ' * 6 He could be most touchingly gentle in his 
manner,' says an old friend, ' to those whom he liked ; 
but I recollect a lady saying she would not for the world 
be his wife, from the way in which she had seen him put 
Mrs. Whately' (the object, all his life, of his strongest 
affection) ' into a carriage.' * 

In 1805 he entered Oriel College, Oxford. That col- 
lege was then, and for some vears afterwards, the most 
distinguished in the whole University. Dr. Copleston, 
afterwards Dean of Chester and Bishop of Llandaff, who 
was a college tutor at Oriel at the time of his entrance, 
and subsequently became Provost, was one of those who 
most eminently contributed to raise the character of his 



2Et. 18] INFLUENCE OF DE. COPLESTON. 11 

college to the height it retained during the early part of 
this century. 

To Richard Whately, whose intellectual life had hitherto 
been so entirely solitary, the lectures and converse of Dr. 
Copleston were like a new spring of life. For the first 
time he found himself brought into immediate communi- 
cation with one who could enter into his aspirations, and 
draw out the latent powers of his mind. And under that 
new and genial influence the young student's powers ex- 
panded like a plant in sunshine. Often has he described 
in after-life those lectures which were to form the turning 
point in his intellectual career. As Copleston's penetra- 
ting eye glanced round the lecture room in search of an 
answering and understanding look, it rested with satis- 
faction on the one pupil who was always sure to be eagerly 
drinking in his every word. The Archbishop often dwelt 
on the thrill of pleasure with which he heard the first 
words of calm discriminating commendation of his theme 
from his tutor's lips : f That is well, Mr. Whately ; I see 
you understand it.' 

*The influence which these two men reciprocally exer- 
cised on each other was very great, and to a certain extent 
coloured the subsequent lives of both. Bishop Copleston 
was more the man of the world of the two. But in him, 
under a polished and somewhat artificial scholarlike ex- 
terior, and an appearance of even overstrained caution, 
there lurked not only much energy of mind and precision of 
judgment, but a strong tendency to liberalism in Church 
and State, and superiority to ordinary fears and prejudices. 
It was in this direction that he especially trained Whately's 
character ; while he learnt to admire, if too staid to imi- 
tate, the uncompromising boldness and thorough freedom 
from partizanship of the younger man. But the ideas of 
both were too uncongenial with those which prevailed 
among the large majority of Oxford residents at the time 
to be in favour ; and ' Oriel ' in general, with its preten- 
sions to dissect, by searching logic, the preconceived 
notions of the little world around it, was not popular. The 
great dispenser of patronage in those days, Lord Liverpool 



12 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1809 

thought to have been prejudiced against Copleston 
by Oxford advisers. And Whately, whose disposition was 
always a little too ready to lend itself to impressions of 
injustice done to a friend, seems early in life to have re- 
garded his tutor as something of a martyr." 

His constitutional tendency was to indolence : but this 
was conquered by his earnest desire to profit by what he 
was learning. He often remarked in after-years that the 
mere thirst for knowledge might not have been in itself 
sufficient to accomplish this ; but his anxious wish to be 
independent, and no longer a burden on his widowed 
mother, was a stimulus to him to advance in those studies 
which alone held out to him a prospect of attaining his 
object. And manfully and resolutely he set himself to 
work. 

Though naturally one who shook off sleep with difficulty. 
it was his college habit to arouse himself by the help of an 
alarum in his room, at five o'clock, summer and winter, 
light his own fire, and study for two hours or more : then 
sally forth for an early walk, from which he returned in 
time to meet the band of late risers hurrying from their 
beds to the eight o'clock chapel. He has described, in his 
6 Annotations on Bacon, 5 the results of the observations of 
natural phenomena that he made in these early morning 
walks ; and also his experience as a student with respect to 
hours. He found it best to pursue the early- rising plan 
when engaged only in the acquirement of knowledge : but 
whenever he had to compose a theme or essay, he found 
his ideas did not flow as freely in the morning as at night: 
he therefore changed his habits, and sat up at night while 
occupied in any original work. 

His intercourse with his tutor. Copleston, soon ripened 
into a steady and solid friendship, which lasted till death 
dissolved it. It was in their long walks together, in the 
woods and meadows near Oxford, that they discussed and 
worked out such subjects as form much of the groundwork 
of the ' Logic* 

In 1S09 he commenced a plan which was continued ilp 
to within a few months of his death. — viz.. that of noting 



2Et. 22] HE KEEPS A COMMONPLACE BOOK. 13 

down his thoughts in a Commonplace Book. A consider- 
able portion of this has now been brought before the pub- 
lic. It is interesting to see his earty aspirations in the first 
pages, written in a youthful and unformed hand. They 
can be best described by quoting his own words: — 'When 
I consider the progress I have made in the improvement 
of my mind since I have been at college, I cannot help think- 
ing that by perseverance almost any one may do more than 
at first sight appears possible ; and I regret more than ever 
the same I formerly lost. But the past cannot be recalled ; 
the future is in my power, and I resolve, through God's 
help, to make the best use of it; and though I am very 
likely to fail of my main object, I shall at least satisfy 
my conscience by doing my best. When I call to mind 
the independent spirit and thirst for improvement which 
I admired in my beloved tutor Copleston, I am stimu- 
lated to double exertions, that I may be enabled, as in 
other things, so in this, to imitate his virtues ; and as the 
improvement of my mind is one of my objects, though 
not the principal one, I have begun the plan recom- 
mended by Miss E. Smith, 1 of keeping a register of my 
thoughts.' 

In this preface, if so we may call it, to all his subsequent 
literary labours, we catch a glimpse of those religious 
sentiments to which the reserve of his character and habits 
rarely permitted an expression ; and the spirit in which he 
began this, which many would have considered a purely 
secular work, is shown further by the full-length quotation 
of the last verse of Psalm xix. in the fly-leaf of his first 
notebook : 6 Let the words of my mouth, and the medi- 
tations of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, Lord, 
my strength, and my redeemer ! ' 

The details of this interesting period of his life are 
necessarily few and scanty ; and they must be chiefly 
drawn from recollections of his conversation in later life, 
and from the pages of his Commonplace Book. 

1 He alludes to a little volume of the ' Eemains of Elizabeth, Smith,' pub- 
lished by Miss Bowdler, and giving an interesting account of the efforts at 
self-improvement under difficulties of a young person of very remarkable 
powers. 



14 life of afaab:s:a<:<? whately. jsh 

The time now came for him to take his degree. Ht 

nt up for honours in 1808, and took a double second- 
- __ — ed :; : Li: :aii\ire :: AAain ;. 
6rst-class in classics was owing to the circumstance that 
the examiners at that time were inclined to lay more stress 
on the graces of language and proficirA in the minute 
points of elegant scholarship than on the branches is 
which he more peculiarly excelled. But, although a very 
good scholar, he was never what, in the estimation of 
fastidious Oxonians, is accounted an accomplished one. 

T'ne "a: Ar": w'nieh _va Lim a seAse o: conscious 
power, was his gaining the prize for the English Essay. 
The subject was the comparativ r excellence :: the ancients 
and moderns, and he often recurred to this early success 
as one of the turning-points in his life. The next step 
forward was his attainment of his fellowship, which took 
jDlace in 1811, when he was elected Fellow of Oriel. No 
advancement in later life evei seems to have given him 
such intense and heartfelt pleasure as this, the first 
well-earned reward of his labours. It enabled him to 
realise his long-cherished wish ;: earning his bread in- 
dependently. 

In 1S12 i_r :■: :k Lis d~_Aee as Master :: Ar:s. and 
continued to r-s: :i- ;.: Oxford ::-. a private tutor. 

The incident which ied to his introduction to one of his 
: : intimate friends,, gives a strong proof of the estima- 
tion in which he was generally held in that capacity. 

An old and valued friend of his, the late Mr. Hardcastle, 
requested him to undertake the tuition of a young man of 
great promise, who had come up to the University with 
ever expectation of honours, but had failed to answer a 
question in Lis divinity examination in the very ords of 
the Catechism. The examines remarked *Why a si: 
child of ~aa ;e:- :i:i : :v.~ : r :i-:. _ ! ' • : : : :»uld I. 

sir, 3 replied the young student^ 'when /was ten years old!' 

: the sharp repartee iii not save him from being 
pluekeA Both he and his family were naturally much 
mortified; but being of a nature not easily -rushed, the 
lisappointment, which might have been hurtful to many, 



J£t. 25] NASSAU W. SENIOR BECOMES HIS PUPIL. 15 

acted rather as a stimulus on him; he resolved he would 
retrieve his injured reputation, and for this it was im- 
portant to secure a first-rate private tutor. Through their 
common friend, Mr. Hardcastle, he was introduced to 
Mr. Whately, and shortly after wrote home to his father 
— 'I have got Whately for my private tutor, and I will 
have the first class next term.' He succeeded, and this 
was the commencement of a friendship between Eichard 
Whately and Nassau William Senior which lasted through 
their lives. The younger friend survived his former tutor 
but a few months. 

In the long vacations he usually went, with a select party 
of his pupils, to read in some picturesque part of England ; 
continental travelling being then shut out, owing to the 
war. Some survive who look back with undying interest 
and pleasure to those summer sojourns, in which their 
teacher became also their companion, and in the midst of 
the sports in which he delighted and excelled — for he was 
a first-rate shot and fisherman — would pour forth from the 
rich stores of his own mind treasures of wit and wisdom 
which were long remembered by his hearers. 1 A few 
reminiscences of these days may be given in the words of 
one of these early pupils and friends, Sherlock Willis, Esq., 
first introduced to him through the means of the Eev. T. 
Parsons, who, as already mentioned, was through life his 
dear and valued friend. 

s I first knew Whately,' writes this early friend, 6 when 
with Mr. Parsons, at Eedlands, near Bristol, as a private 
pupil. Whately had then just taken his degree at Oriel. 
Parsons had been a fellow of Oriel and an old friend and 
schoolfellow of Whately's. Being a West Indian, many of 
his friends were from thence. One of these of the name 
of Eowe, Hinds, and myself, became amongst Whately's 
most intimate friends at college, in consequence of his 
having known us at his friend Parsons's. He was always 

1 There are — or were until very lately — some few who remembered Mr. 
Whately in his early Oxford days, under the soubriquet of the 'White Bear,' 
derived from a white hat, rough white coat, and huge white dog which were 
then his principal outward marks. 



16 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1814 

original both in manners and dress, and showed even then 
his high order of intellect. 

' Two years after I entered Oxford, when I began to 
read steadily, he received me as a regular private pupil, 
and six months afterwards we all went together to Conis- 
ton — his friends Hinds and Boultbee, and myself. This 
was in 1814. We were all reading together — we formed 
a kind of republic — Whately was always ready to give us 
advice or information for our reading when called upon. 
Our usual manner of life was to rise at five in the morn- 
ing, breakfast early, dine at two, read " Terence " from 
half-past two to three or so, and then go out on excursions, 
— boating, lishing, or walking up the fells. There was a 
lady in the neighbourhood, whose daughter had written a 
book in four volumes, which she lent the party ; each took 
a volume and read it up, so that when they were in com- 
pany with the lady, and the book was under discussion, it 
was agreed that the one whose volume was being discussed 
should undertake the answers ! 

6 Whately insisted on our constantly conversing in Latin, 
to give familiarity with the language, and very amusing 
were the expressions used: "Porrige juglandes, quseso," 
for " hand the walnuts." " Jam lucet sol super cacumina 
montium " was the call to summon us to rise in the morn- 
ing. 

6 He was always full of humour, and had a strong sense 
of the ludicrous. One day he and I wanted to go out 
fishing ; we went down to the lake, and found our boat 
afloat. This annoyed him, and I waded into the water 
and brought it up, upon which we got in and went on our 
way fishing; his way of repaying me (for repay me he 
did) was by giving me a lecture on " Aristotle" — a toler- 
ably large compensation for a wetting ! As we were fish- 
ing in the boat, a man came up and asked to be taken in, 
to which we agreed. The man was fishing from one end 
of the boat, and we from the other. He caught nothing; 
we did, as fast as we could throw in the line. We were, 
us usual, speaking in Latin. The man expressed his sur- 
prise that he could not catch as we did. " Why," said 



^Et. 27] HIS ORDINATION. 17 

Whately, " you should talk Latin to them as we do ! " The 
fact was that there was a shoal which did not reach to his 
end of the boat.' 

Whately's close and sympathetic familiarity with the 
writings of Aristotle has been already mentioned. In 
point of fact, he was perhaps the leader among those who 
rendered the ethics and rhetoric of the Stagyrite for many 
years the leading class-book of his University, and who 
studied to unite them, by comparison and analysis, with 
all that they esteemed most valuable in modern philosophy. 
For the enthusiastic and exclusive Aristotelian tendency 
of Oxford minds, for a whole generation after his in- 
troduction to tutorial life, no man was so responsible as 
Whately.* 

With Plato's intellectual peculiarities, on the other 
hand, he had little sympathy. The cast of his own mind 
was as unsuited to the master as it was in harmony with 
the pupil. 

He was ordained deacon in the year 1814, and preached 
his first sermon at Knowle in Warwickshire. On this 
occasion his habits of abstraction caused him to commit a 
characteristic blunder ; he forgot to write down his text, 
and when he had entered the pulpit, w T as obliged to com- 
municate with the clerk to procure it. 

It might be supposed, from the natural shyness of his 
disposition, that on first appearing in the pulpit he would 
have been painfully conscious ; but the deep and solemn 
sense of the message he had to deliver was an effectual 
safeguard against this tendency. On a friend asking him 
if he did not feel very nervous on first reading and preach- 
ing in public, he replied, that he dared not; to think of 
himself at such a time was, in his eyes, not only a weak- 
ness but a sin. 

Another lively picture of this part of his college life, 
during the period between 1811 and 1815, is given in the 
reminiscences of Bishop Hinds. The traits cited of him, 
though some of them may appear trivial, are so strikingly 
indicative of his character that we cannot withhold them. 
Bishop Hinds writes : — 

c 



18 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1811-12 

'I went from school to Oxford in November 1811; it 
having been previously arranged that Whately was to be 
my private tutor. He was, at that time, still a B.A, and 
in lodgings. There I received my first lecture. His 
apartment was a small one, and the little room in it 
much reduced by an enormous sofa, on which I found 
him stretched at length, with a pipe in his mouth, the 
atmosphere becoming denser and denser as he puffed. 
Not being accustomed to smoking, my eyes burned and 
my head was affected. All, however, was soon forgotten 
in the interest of the interview. There was no ostenta- 
tious display of talent and acquirement. Never did tutor 
in his teaching seem to think so little of himself, and to 
be so thoroughly engrossed with making his pupil com- 
prehend what he taught. As was his custom, he often 
digressed from the lecture proper into some other topic, 
but was always instructive and entertaining. We immedi- 
ately took to one another ; I parted from him dazzled and 
fascinated. 

* I was soon invited to join him in his early morning 
walks. His custom was to start soon after five o'clock, 
returning, generally, in time for eight o'clock chapel. In 
these rambles he was glorious. Every object was a text. 
It may be literally recorded of him that "he spake of 
trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto 
the hyssop that springeth out of the wall ; also of beasts, 
and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes ; " all 
taking their turn with classical or modern literature, 
religion, philosophy, and what not besides? Nihil non 
tetigit, nihil tetigit quod non ornavit 

'One peculiarity I used to note; he ever quitted the 
beaten tracks ; and we were sure, sooner or later, to have 
a hedge or ditch to scramble through, or swampy ground 
to tread delicately over, without any apparent reason, 
except his perverse propensity for avia loca, nullius ante 
trita solo. 

' On one of these occasions we were joined by another 
of his pupils, a schoolfellow of mine, long since dead — 
an out-and-out specimen of Milsom Street and the Pump 



2Et. 27] BISHOP HINDS' KECOLLECTIONS OF HIM. 19 

Room, Bath, as Bath was in those days ; exquisitely neat 
in his person, and scrupulous about soiling the very soles 
of his boots — shoes I ought to say, for at that time they 
were generally worn in Oxford. We got on without any 
serious discomfort to him, until we came upon a stream of 
water. Whately turning to him said, " What shall we do 
now ? " He, no more dreaming of his tutor really fording 
the stream than of his miraculously drying it up, replied 
jocularly, "If you will go through, I will follow." In 
plunged Whately ; but looking back, and seeing II. E. 
gaping at him, without the remotest intention of following 
him, he returned, and exclaiming, " You said you would 
follow me, and follow me you shall," dragged him bodily 
through the water. He was a good-natured fellow, and 
joined in the hearty laugh at his expense, but never in 
another cross-country walk. 

' We passed the Christmas vacation of 1812, or part of 
it, together at Ramsgate. He brought with him his gun 
and a dog. Within-doors I went over with him the first 
six books of Euclid. His mode of teaching it was, I recol- 
lect, to give me the Propositions and leave me to puzzle 
them out without book or other assistance, which was only 
given when I had tried and failed to do so. Out-of-doors 
he always carried his gun, and occasionally brought down 
a bird. His chief sport was among the rooks, a species, 
if I recollect aright, remarkable for having some white 
feathers. One morning he shot an unusually plump one. 
" This," said he, " will make a capital supper for Bishop " 
— that, I think, was the name of his dog. Accordingly 
he brought the rook home, and handed it to the landlady, 
with instructions as to how it was to be dressed for doggy. 
In due time it made its appearance, looking, I must con- 
fess, anything but tempting for a human stomach; and 
the dog seemed to think it as little suited to canine 
nature, for he turned his back on it disdainfully, and 
slunk into a corner. Whately endeavoured to coax him 
into an appetite for it, and, from coaxing, changed his 
tone to that of remonstrance and rebuke. All to no pur- 
pose. It now became a contest between the will of the 

c2 






20 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1813-15 

master and that of the animal. Whately resolved to carry 
his point. The dish was put away until the following- 
day. Morning, noon, and night the same scene recurred ; 
the more Whately laboured to induce Bishop, the more 
Bishop seemed determined not to yield, and the dish was 
remanded to yet another day. On the following morning, 
when the dog was called, and, as before, shown the boiled 
rook, he paused for some minutes, eyed it with a look 
which deserved to be immortalised by Landseer, uttered a 
sharp yelp, and, pouncing on the hateful mess, devoured 
it as ferociously as ever New Zealander did the flesh of 
his enemy, Whately all the while shouting, " Grood dog, 
good dog ! " The victory was gained, but there was no 
more rook-cooking. 

' W T hen Whately was reading for the Oriel fellowship, 
he spent a long vacation at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight. 
It was before I became acquainted with him ; but he has 
often told me that whilst there he made two days out of 
one. His method was to rise about three o'clock in the 
morning, and conclude his first day at noon. He then 
undressed, drew his bed-room curtains, went to bed, and 
slept for two or three hours. Then began his second day, 
which ended at ten at night. For all working purposes 
he found time doubled; the noon siesta doing for him 
what night usually does, in breaking the current of active 
life and preparing us for fresh exertion. 

6 Whately and I started from Oxford, early one morning 
in the winter of 1813, by a Birmingham coach, to visit 
our friends the Boultbees at Springfield. Our travelling 
companions, inside the coach, were two strangers, a man 
and a woman. The man was full of fun and frolic, and 
for some time made himself merry at the expense of the 
woman, having detected her in the act of slyly putting to 
her lips a bottle of some comforting drink with which she 
had provided herself. From her he turned upon Whately, 
observing, as the daylight increased, that he had the ap- 
pearance of being clerical or academical. "I suppose, 
sir," said he, "that you are one of the gentlemen who 
teach at Oxford ? " Whately nodded assent. " I don't 



&t. 26-28] DISCUSSION WITH A CATHOLIC FARMER. 21 

care/' he continued, " who knows it, but I am a Catholic." 
No reply. "Well, sir., I'll tell you what my religious prin- 
ciple is. My wife is one of you, and I have a servant who 
is a Dissenter. When Sunday comes round, I see that 
my wife goes to her place of worship, my servant to hers, 
and I go to mine. Is not that the right religious prin- 
ciple ? " 

Wliately : " Yes ; but I do not mean by that that you 
are right in being a Roman Catholic." 

Stranger: "Ay, you don't like our praying to the 
Virgin Mary and to the saints." 

Wliately : " That is one thing ; but I must own that 
there is something to be said for your doing so." 

Stranger : " To be sure there is." 

Wliately : " You, I guess., are a farmer ? " 

Stranger : " Yes, sir, and no farm in better order than 
mine in all Oxfordshire." 

Whately : " If your lease was nearly run out, and you 
wanted to have it renewed on good terms, I dare say you 
would ask any friend of your landlord, any of his family, 
or even his servants, any one in short, to say a good word 
for you ? " 

Stranger : " You have hit it : our praying to the Virgin 
and to the saints to intercede for us is the same thing — 
it is but natural and reasonable." 

Whately: "Now, suppose your landlord had one only 
son — a favourite — and he gave out that whoever expected 
any favour from him, must ask that son, and no one else, 
to intercede for him, what then ? " 

Stranger : " Oh ! that would alter the case ; but what 
do you mean by that ? " 

Whately : " I mean that God has declared to us, by His 
Word, the Bible, that there is one Mediator between God 
and man — the man Christ Jesus." 

Stranger : " And is that in the Bible ? " 

Whately : u It is ; and when you go home, if you have a 
Bible, you may look into it yourself and see." 

6 After a pause, the farmer said, " Well, sir, I'll think over 
that; but "—and on the controversy travelled through the 



22 LIFE OF ABCHBISHOP TTHATELT. [1313-15 

prominent differences between us and the Roman Catholics, 
the farmer, on each successive defeat, endeavouring to 
make up for being driven from one position by falling 
back on another which he presumed must be more tenable. 

6 This discussion lasted until we were near Banbury, 
where we parted company. The farmer, on quitting, 
having noticed that Whately had a fowling-piece with 
him, held out his hand to him, and said, "I am so-and-so, 
and live at such-and-such a place, not far from this ; if 
you will come and spend a few days with me, I will get 
you some capital shooting, and I'll be right glad to see 
you. Now you'll come, won't you ? " 

6 As they never met again, Whately never knew whether 
his arguments made any permanent impression on the 
man. Perhaps he does now, and may be rejoicing over 
an ingathering* from seed thus scattered, and left for God 
to give it increase. 

c While on a visit to his friend Parsons, at Eedland, 
near Bristol, they attended divine service one Sunday at a 
church hard by. On the clergyman beginning the prayers, 
Whately was seized with one of those strange fancies that 
intrude sometimes on one's most serious and solemn 
moments. He thought, ''What if that clergyman were 
suddenly to drop dead ? What would take place ? '' In the 
midst of this day-dream the clergyman did actually drop, 
and was carried out of the church. rt I hardly knew," said 
Whately, on relating the occurrence. " whether I was awake 
or asleep." He was soon roused, however, by some one 
from the vestry, who reported that the clergyman was too 
ill to return, and requested that he or Parsons would 
undertake the service. It was arranged that Parsons 
should occupy the desk, and that a messenger should be 
despatched to his house for some sermons of Whately's, 
which he had, as he supposed, left in an open drawer. 
The service proceeded, drew near to a close, and no ser- 
mons arrived. At the last moment the messenger returned 
to say that thev were not to be found. Whately, never- 
theless, mounted the pulpit, made some remarks on the 
accident that gave occasion to his being there, apologised 



2£t. 26-28] HIS COLLEGE FRIENDS. 23 

to the congregation for having no sermon, and hoped that 
they would be content with his doing for them what he 
was in the habit of doing for his own people— reading a 
chapter from the Bible, and explaining it as he went on. 
This he did, no doubt much to their instruction and edifi- 
cation, besides saving the Church from the reproach of one 
of its congregations being dismissed without a word of 
exhortation, neither of two clergymen present being able 
to give it. 

6 Among the incidents in my intercourse with him 
which I most regret having allowed to pass into oblivion, 
except as to their general impression on me, were my 
evenings with him after he had been in Oriel Common 
Eoom. 1 The discussions which used to take place, on a 
wide range of subjects, were most enlightening, and he 
used to detail them to me nearly verbatim. Would that 
I could recall some of them ! That Common Eoom was 
to him not a mere place of resort for relaxation and recrea- 
tion, but a school for sharpening his argumentative powers, 
and for training him to make that use of them in his 
social intercourse, in Parliament, and in other public 
assemblies, which was so striking and effective. It is 
hardly too much to say, that he was not less indebted to 
Oriel Common Eoom than to the college lectures in the 
earlier portion of his college life.' 

*The Archbishop's principal friends, both of the Oriel 
Common Eoom and others, will be gradually introduced 
to the reader in this correspondence. Newman, Hinds, 
Baden Powell, Pope (his brother-in-law), and the Eev. J. 
Woodgate (now Eector of Belbroughton), may be named 
as chief among those who formed his set or ' following,' if 
such it may be termed, during his residence at Oxford. 
But Whately was never a popular man, in the ordinary 
sense of the word. His opinions clashed too decidedly with 

1 * It is curious ' (says Dean Stanley, in his ' Life of Arnold ') ' to observe 
the list which when the youthful scholar of Corpus, Arnold, was added to 
it (he was elected Fellow of Oriel in 1815) contained the names of Copies- 
ton, Davison, Whately, Keble, Hawkins, and, shortly after he left it (1820), 
those of Xewman and Pusey.' 



24 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1815 

those which prevailed in the Oxford society of his day to 
render him so in general life. And in private, though 
some loved hira, many were deterred from attempting any 
close intimacy with him by his roughness of manner, 
and the disdain which he was commonly supposed to 
entertain for the common herd of thinkers. All the while, 
his attachment to his own particular set — to those few who 
were his real intimates — was almost feminine in its tender- 
ness, and most constant in its durability. Any friend of 
Whately's was (in his view) something sacred — some one 
whose views, and writings, and character were to be de- 
fended against all comers, and at all hazards. And no one 
can have failed to remark in his writings, traces of that 
curious self-delusion which sometimes affects men of strong 
minds and strong affections, and who are by nature teachers 
rather than readers and listeners. Judgments and senti- 
ments which he had himself instilled into his sectaries, 
when reproduced by them, struck him as novelties ; and 
he may frequently be caught quoting, with much appro- 
bation, expressions of this or that follower, which in truth 
are mere ' Whateleiana,' consciously or unconsciously 
borrowed from him.* 

In 1815 he made his first journey abroad, under circum- 
stances very unlike those which mark the foreign excur- 
sions of most young men. His expedition was made with 
no view to personal gratification or curiosity, but entirely 
for the sake of another. His fourth sister, afterwards 
Lady Barry, who had long been in precarious health, had 
just received the fiat from her physician that she must 
pass the ensuing cold season confined to her apartment. 
On mentioning this to her brother, he hastened to ascer- 
tain from her medical adviser if a winter in Portugal 
would be a desirable alternative, and on receiving an 
affirmative answer, he at once proposed escorting her and 
another sister to Oporto. This offer involved no small 
self-denial, as it was made in uncertainty as to whether 
he could venture to leave his sisters abroad ; and in the 
event of his being obliged to remain with them, a whole 
year of his college work was sacrificed. No personal 



Mr. '28] HIS AVERSION TO TRAVELLING. 25 

gratification could to him have made up for such a loss : 
and foreign travel did not present the same attraction for 
him that it does for most young men. 

It was a curious feature in his character, that though 
an unwearied observer of nature, with a lively interest in 
national peculiarities, and a correct appreciation of fine 
scenery, travelling was in general positively disagreeable 
to him. To his concentrative mind, the attention to small 
details was most annoying ; and to one whose nature craved 
constant and steady work, weeks spent in moving about 
and sight-seeing were irksome. His mind turned with 
longing to his regular pursuits ; and though for a definite 
object he would shrink from no fatigue or difficulty, he 
would never have felt it worth while going far out of his 
way to see the grandest scene or most curious sight, much 
as he might enj oy it if it came into the ordinary course of 
his life. And for the treasures of art, antiquity, curious 
old cities, and fine buildings, he had little or no taste. 
Pictures gave him the liveliest pleasure, if the subject 
interested him, and the design seemed well carried out ; 
but not otherwise. He never forgot a picture which really 
illustrated a subject he thought interesting and suitable; 
sketches of costumes of different countries, illustrations of 
savage life, of hunting, or of striking scenes in history or 
fiction, delighted him. When on the Continent, many 
years later, he turned with indifference and almost distaste 
from the masterpieces of Eaphael, Correggio, and other old 
masters. Madonnas and Holy Families seemed to him 
only misrepresentations of Scripture, whose beauty of 
execution could not atone for the false ideas conveyed; 
but he was enchained by a picture he saw at Frankfort, in 
1846, of John Huss before the Council of Constance, and 
recurred to it repeatedly in after years. Architecture was 
a ' dead letter ' to him ; and for antiquities, as such, he 
had little or no taste. 

It may therefore easily be imagined, that the journey 
thus undertaken was one which involved even more self- 
sacrifice in him than to most others. In those days a 
journey to Portugal was no easy matter. By some inad- 



26 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1815 

vertency the vessel which sailed direct for Oporto periodi- 
cally was missed, and they were compelled to take places 
in a ship bound for Lisbon. Here they delayed no longer 
than was needful for rest ; and it is characteristic of the 
turn of mind referred to, that he made no attempt to visit 
the already renowned beauties of Cintra. The journey 
from Lisbon had to be performed across the country, on 
roads betokening a very low state of civilisation, and at a 
time when the recent Peninsular war had left everything 
in confusion. After a slow and fatiguing journey Oporto 
was reached ; and there they found some friends settled, 
under whose protection Mr. Whately was enabled to leave 
his sisters, and, after a few days, to return by the next 
packet to his college duties. 

His recollections, however, of this short trip were sin- 
gularly full and vivid ; and often, in later life, he would 
recur to peculiarities he had remarked in the country, 
people, customs, and language. Nothing escaped him. 
He learned enough of the language to make himself 
understood in common things, and forty years afterwards 
would remember and remark on Portuguese words as if 
he had heard them but yesterday. He was accustomed 
to speak of himself as a bad linguist, and the learning of 
languages for the mere sake of learning was not a pursuit 
to which he was much inclined ; but the general principles 
of language, and everything connected with philological 
research, were always interesting to him. French was 
the only modern language he ever made himself master 
of; he acquired it at school, persisting, in spite of the 
ridicule of his companions, in conversing in French with 
the French master. In after life he had much occasional 
intercourse with foreigners, and although he always seemed 
to feel painfully hampered by a language of which he did 
not possess the full command he had of his own, still those 
who conversed with him were often struck with the accu- 
racy and fluency of his French conversation. 

On his return from Portugal, in the autumn of 1815, 
he gladly returned to the scenes and the sphere of work 
which were so congenial to him ; and the next five or six 



JErr. 23] HIS FACULTY OF TUITION. 27 

years were spent entirely in his employments as a tutor, 
both in a private and public capacity, varied only by 
occasional exclusions during the long vacations. 

Teaching was indeed the occupation most peculiarly 
suited to his powers and tastes. He had a remarkable 
faculty of drawing out the mind of the learner, by leading 
him step by step, and obliging him to think for himself. 
He used to say that he believed himself to be one of the 
few teachers who could train a young person of retentive 
memor}' for words, without spoiling him. The temptation 
to the student in such cases, is to rehearse by rote the 
rules or facts he has learned, without exercising his powers 
of thought ; while one whose powers of recollection were 
less perfect, would be forced to reflect and consider what 
was likely to be written or said on such or such a point by 
the writer, and thus to learn more intelligently and less 
mechanically. The cure for this tendency, in young 
persons who learned quickly by rote, he effected by asking 
them questions substantially the same as those in the text- 
book, but which they must answer in their own words, 
making them draw conclusions from axioms already laid 
down. In this manner he was able successfully to teach 
mathematics to many who had been apparently unable to 
master the first principles, and often to ground them in 
the Elements of Euclid better than some mathematicians 
whose actual attainments were far beyond his own. 

Both in this branch and in logic, as in all other studies, 
he always commenced analytically and ended synthetically 
— first drawing out the mind of the learner by making 
him give the substance of the right answer, and then re- 
quiring the exact technical form of it in words. In later 
life he loved to propose logical puzzles for the young 
persons around him, to whom he would give a breakfast- 
table lecture, and make them dissect some inconclusive 
piece of reasoning, or solve some problem. 

One of the few survivors among his near connexions 
records some pleasing reminiscences of his manner of 
teaching in private. 'I can speak/ she writes, *to his 
kind and patient way of instructing me when a girl, always 



28 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1816 

saying, u Do not adopt my opinions because they are 
mine, but judge for yourself;" of his pleasant, playful 
way of correcting foibles. I used to scribble sadly as a 
girl, and he wrote me a letter, beginning in a clear hand, 

"My dear ," and then a page of scribble impossible 

to read ; ending with, " Now you see the evil of writing 
unintelligibly." He cured me of shyness too. u You are 
shy," he would say, u because you are thinking of the 
impression you are making. Think only of the pleasure 
you can give to others, and not of yourself." ' 

He possessed a remarkable power of discriminating and 
analysing the characters of those with whom he was 
brought into contact as teacher. His own reminiscences, 
given in conversation in later life, of these early Oxford 
experiences among his pupils, were both interesting and 
instructive ; and those who listened to him could scarcely 
fail of retaining vivid mental pictures of the groups he 
sketched, though the individuals described were scarcely 
known to them by name. Among the rest stands out, in 
strong relief, the contrast drawn between two in particular 
— one with a calm and self-possessed exterior, concealing 
an almost morbid diffidence and self-distrust ; the other 
shy and timid in company, yet secretly inclined to over- 
rate his powers. I think it was the former of these hvo, 
whom he persuaded, with some difficulty, to write an essay 
for a prize. For some time the youngstudent hung back, de- 
claring he could never even hope to pass muster. His tutor 
at last induced him by earnest persuasion, out of personal 
compliance with a friend's request, to begin. After writing 
a few pages, the courage of the candidate failed ; he sent 
them to his tutor with a note, declaring he had made the 
attempt to please him, and sent what he had done to 
prove the impossibility of his succeeding. Mr. Whately at 
once perceived that the commencement was a promising 
one, and indicated talents which would command success : 
knowing therefore the character he had to deal with, he 
wrote on the margin, tf Go on as you have begun, and you 
will get the prize.' He did so, succeeded, and felt that it 
was a step which gave the turning-point to his life. 



Mr. 29] FIRMNESS WITH HIS PUPILS. 29 

Mr. Whately took, indeed, a peculiar delight in en- 
couraging diffident and desponding characters. He used 
to say that in England, over-diffidence was really a com- 
moner defect than excessive self-esteem. 

Yet he was resolutely firm when occasion called for it. 
In one case it was necessary a student should be expelled 
for glaring misconduct. He was a man of uncommon 
talent, and even genius, and possessed singular powers of 
persuasion. He wrote a long, eloquent, and touching 
letter to Mr. Whately, entreating him and the other college 
officers to reconsider their decision. ' I did not venture a 
second glance at the letter,' said my father, in speaking 
of the incident many years later ; ' I knew we had decided 
rightly, and that we ought not to yield; but the power of 
that letter was such that T could not trust myself with a 
second reading, lest I should be softened in spite of my 
better judgment ; so I threw it into the fire.' 

This was a case in which any concession would have 
injured the character of the college, and been hurtful to 
the principles of morality and virtue; but Dr. Whately, as 
Principal of Alban Hall, some years later, was a merciful 
though a strict head of a house. ' I pardon this as a first 
offence,' he would sometimes say, after some escapade of 
an undergraduate, ' and I do not wish to remember it. I 
will not, unless you force me to do so. But recollect, if 
that you commit a second, I must remember the first.' 

Another reminiscence of a different kind we may quote. 
He had an early college friend, whose character he used to 
describe as a peculiarly attractive union of perfect sweet- 
ness of temper with a vehement enthusiasm, which is 
more frequently combined with some heat and irritability. 
6 He was like a south-west wind,' he would say, ' strong, 
but mild. Once he was bursting forth into a vehement 
eulogy of the institution of Trial by Jury. I maintained, 
on the opposite side, that England was not ripe for it when 
first introduced, and is scarcely fit for it yet. He seized 
a glass of wine, and, falling on his knees, drank the health 
of the founder of the institution ; I immediately took up a 
glass of water and, turning my back on the table, drank 



30 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1816-19 

the health, as if in mockery, to the great amusement of all 
present.' 

His energy and love of remedying abuses were mani- 
fested on many occasions which would generally be re- 
garded as trifling. He used to relate that when travelling 
by stage-coach, as he did two or three times a year, be- 
tween Oxford and Bath, the coachman was in the habit of 
putting up half-way at an inn of very inferior pretensions. 
whose landlord and attendants, counting on the custom of 
the stage-coach as secure., made it their chief object to 
delay the breakfast or luncheon till the passengers were 
compelled to resume their journey without tasting the meal 
they had paid for. 'I determined at last/ he said, 'that I 
would not suffer this. As soon as the coach stopped to 
change horses, I ran across to a small inn on the opposite 
side, and engaged the people to prepare some refreshment 
as quickly as possible. Seeing that the change might 
benefit them, they were wonderfully prompt. Xext time 
we passed I spoke of this to my companions, and persuaded 
one or two to come with me and get breakfast where it 
could be had in time. Each journey brought more and 
more of the passengers to my side, and at last, one memor- 
able day. the whole party of travellers, inside and out- 
side, repaired to the ojjjjosition inn. The victory was 
gained, the coach thenceforth put up there, and the rival 
house was effectually put down.' 

He w^as fond of the outside of a coach, and conversed 
freely with all he met. often repeating amusing incidents 
of the old travelling days. Most of his friends will re- 
member the stage-coach guard, who having been in the 
East or West Indies (I forget which), and also being 
possessed of some knowledge of chemistry, enjoyed a de- 
lightful sense of his superiority, of which he made the 
most, by parading before those whom he met his knowledge 
of whichever branch he found them deficient in . He poured 
forth the stores of his erudition to his fellow-traveller, 
who let him go on, till at last, in a paroxysm of self-com- 
placency, he exclaimed, ' Sir, I knows the natur of all 
things as is in the world ! ' 



.Et. 32] REMINISCENCES OF COLLEGE LIFE. 31 

The following reminiscences from one of his early 
friends, the Key. R. N. Boultbee, addressed to the writer 
of this memoir, will throw further light on his character 
and early history : ' I regret,' he says, ' that I can give you 
no information as to the early part of your father's college 
life, as my acquaintance with him did not commence till 
after he had been elected a Fellow of Oriel, and taken his 
M.A. degree. He was the contemporary and great friend 
of my eldest brother at Oriel, and out of regard for him, 
when I went up to college, he took me by the hand, and 
was during my whole career at Oxford as an elder brother, 
friend, tutor — in a word, everything to me ; and to him 
I alwaj^s consider that I owe my chief success in life. 
I was in the habit of walking out into the country with 
him two or three times a week, and during these rambles 
I was made the recipient of many of his most original 
thoughts, preserved in his Commonplace Book. Well do 
I remember the shady bank in Bagley Wood, where he 
first read to me the draft of the " Historic Doubts." 

* 1 left Oxford in 1819, and we rarely met till he re- 
turned there as Principal of St. Alban Hall. There from 
time to time I used to visit him, and during these visits 
had frequently cause to regret how very much the influence 
he might have exercised in the government of the Uni- 
versity was lessened by his utter disregard of the customs 
and regulations of the place. 

6 On many a summer's evening did I walk with him in 
" beaver," as it was called, in Christchurch meadow, where 
every one was expected to appear in cap and gown, and 
where, to the horror of the " Dons," a crowd would be 
collected round him to witness the exploits of his dog 
w Sailor," a large spaniel whom he had taught to climb 
the high trees hanging over the Cherwell, from which he 
would often drop into the river below ; and this curious 
exploit of his dog he continued to exhibit, in the face of 
sundry grave remonstrances. Nevertheless his influence 
for good in the University was very considerable, the 
result of his transcendent talents and uncompromising 
honesty. As a preacher in the University, his powers 



.32 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1S19 

were fully appreciated, though his manner was far from 
attractive. Early attendance at the doors of the church 
on the days he preached was necessary to secure even a 
standing-place 



' The way in which he would throw himself into the 
trifling amusements of societ-v, was to me a verv striking* 

part of his character. During my residence at college we 
got up a chess duly, limited to ten members, which met 
at each other's rooms. He was a good player, and at and 
after the supper which followed the games, he was the life 
and soul of the party, first and foremost in the jokes and 
charades, and fun of all kinds : and many of our best songs 
were supplied by him. He was no singer : I never heard 
him attempt it. But the rule was that those who could 
not sing must compose a song. 

i Several of the songs in his collection were composed 
for the cluly. and sung by myself. 

( One scene is. and will ever be. from particular circum- 
stances, very vividly before me. It was at the house of 

his great friend. Mr. B. of A. In the morning B , 

Whately, and myself, had amused ourselves by lading a 
hole in the brook, for the sake of catching ••bullheads.'" a 
small unsightly fish with which the brook abounded, and 
which were supposed to be very good. In the evening- 
was a grand dinner — a magnificent tuxbot at one end of 
the table, and a dish of bullheads at the other, to which 
latter Whately most gallantly adhered. A certain lady, 
well-known for her propensity for setting people to-rights, 
called out, " I can't think. Air. Whately. how you can eat 
those ugly-looking fish, with such a magnificent turbo t 
before you; they are so small!" He replied, without 
looking up from his plate. - If you had a whale on your 
plate, you must cut it in bits before you put it in your 
mouth ! " I never shall forget how completely the whole 
party were electrified and delighted with the extinguisher 
put upon the good lady. 5 



v£t. 32] A TABLE ANECDOTE. 33 

It was at this time, when dining with a friend in Wor- 
cester College, that a trifling incident brought out one of 
his happiest boiis mots. There were some medlars on the 
table, and his host regretted that he had in vain tried to 
procure also some services (Pyrus domestica, a fruit which 
grows wild in Kent and Sussex, and is there called ' chec- 
quers '). One of the company asked the difference between 
a ' service ' and a fc meddler,' to w r hich Mr. Whately replied, 
( The same kind of difference as that between " officium " 
and " officiosus." ' 



34 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1821 



CHAPTEE II. 

1821—1830. 

Commencement of his active literary career — A contributor to the ' Ency- 
clopaedia Metropolitana ' — His ' Historic Doubts respecting Napoleon 
Buonaparte ' and other works — His marriage — Appointed Bampton Lec- 
turer — Eemoves to Halesworth — Illness of Mrs. Whately — Takes his 
D.D., and is appointed Principal of Alban Hall —Literary Society at 
Oxford — Testimony of Dr. Newman — of Dr. Mayo — Instances of his 
powers of anecdote and repartee — Letter to Dr. Copleston — His plan for 
educating his children — Sir Robert Peel and Catholic Emancipation — 
Supports Sir Robert, which leads to a breach with his early friends — 
Rupture with Dr. Newman — Elected Professor of Political Economy — 
Passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill — Interests himself for the 
re-election of Sir R. Peel — Publishes the 'Errors of Romanism' — Letter 
on National Distress. 

*This period of Whately 's life was one of great and pro- 
ductive literary activity. He was a frequent contributor 
to some periodicals, and, in particular, to the ' Encyclo- 
paedia Metropolitana : ' and in their pages some of the 
works by which he became in after-life most celebrated, 
first appeared. 

In 1821, he edited Archbishop King's 6 Treatises on Pre- 
destination,' and in 1825 he published his essays ' On some 
of the Peculiarities of the Christian Keligion ; ' wiiich, with 
the essays ' On some of the Difficulties in the Writings of 
St. Paul ' (1828), and on the ' Errors of Eomanism Traced 
to their Origin in Human Nature,' form a series which 
has gone through many editions, which first established 
his reputation as a theologian, and which brought down 
on him no small share of his unpopularity with some 
classes in the Church. 1 * 

1 This may be the most convenient place for noticing his celebrated 
little pamphlet of 'Historic Doubts respecting Napoleon Buonaparte.' 



iET. 34] HIS MARRIAGE. 35 

The materials for an account of his private life, during 
these years, are scanty. With a few early friends, not 
resident in Oxford, he appears to have maintained a full 
and frequent correspondence; but of these hardly any 
survive, and of the letters in their hands none seem to have 
been preserved. He never kept any kind of journal; he 
had special aversion to any work which he could not look 
forward to completing ; and often said if he were forced 
to undertake a life-long diary he should wish his life 
over. 

In the year 1820, being somewhat out of health, he 
was recommended to try the waters of Cheltenham, and 
went on a visit to his friend and pupil, Sherlock Willis ; 
and thus naturally became acquainted with his friend's 
aunt, Mrs. Pope, widow of W. Pope, Esq., of Hillingdon, 
Middlesex, who was at that time also residing at Chelten- 
ham with her daughters. To the third daughter, Eliza- 
beth, he formed an attachment ; and in the July of the 
following year was married to her at Cheltenham, by the 
Eev. Mr. Jervis, the rector. In what light he regarded 
his marriage as affecting the happiness of his life may be 
judged from a touching little memorandum in his Com- 
monplace Book of that year — the only outlet he ever 
allowed himself (and that rarely) for his inmost feelings. 

' Happiness,' he remarks, in an article dated the year 
before, f must, I conclude from conjecture, be a calm and 
serious feeling.' The following year he adds a note in 
Latin, < I proved it, thank God! July 18, 1821.' 

* We had in our hand recently the thirteenth edition of it, published when 
the nephew of its hero had become President of the French Republic, and 
there may have been more since. It is directed against reasoners who 
argue thus (and writers on Hume's side are constantly falling into the 
confusion, intentionally or casually) : " Miracles cannot be believed on 
human testimony. But, in addition to this, the testimony on which you 
receive them is full of inconsistencies and absurdities." The Whateleian 
answer is : " If no testimony will make miracles credible, then the character 
of the testimony is unimportant. But if it is important, then I will show 
you that a piece of well-known history — that of Napoleon, for instance — is 
as full of apparent inconsistencies and absurdities as the instances you cite 
from Scripture. And then, this task disposed of, we can attach ourselves 
more closely to the issue which is the kernel — Are miracles credible or 
no?"' — Edinburgh Review, vol. cxxii. 

D 2 



36 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELT. [1822 

To speak of her who was now to be the companion of 
his life, is not easy for those who feel so deeply. To say 
that she was one fully able to appreciate his high quali- 
ties, is no more than truth, but falls far short of it. Those 
who remember the grace and dignity of character, the 
delicacy of mind, and sensitive refinement, which were 
united with her high powers of intellect and mental culti- 
vation, and a thirst for knowledge seldom exceeded, will 
not fail to recall intercourse with one so gifted as a pri- 
vilege; but many more still will remember, with deep 
reverence, the moral and Christian graces which adorned 
her ; the devoted unselfishness, the almost painfully sensi- 
tive conscientiousness, the gentle, tender, unwearied be- 
nevolence, and deep affections, all guided and regulated 
by the highest principles, springing from that living and 
, loving faith in her Lord and Saviour, in the strength of 
which she lived and worked, and resting on which she 
died. What she was to the poor, the sick, the ignorant, 
and the erring ; what her labours of love were in Dublin, 
where she carried out many blessed and Christian works 
which ended only with her life, many remain to testify ; 
but all cannot be known till the great day when the sower 
and the reaper shall rejoice together. 

Shortly after his marriage Dr. Whately settled in Ox- 
ford, where he took pupils. The following year he was 
appointed Bampton Lecturer, and his first published 
volume contains the course of lectures then delivered. 
The subject he chose was one which much occupied his 
mind through life — the evils and dangers of party spirit. 1 
He often observed afterwards that in this choice of a sub- 
ject he felt he was, as it were, ' breaking the bridge behind 
him,' and committing himself to a life-long combat against 
the evil he denounced. In the August of this year (1822), 
he removed to Halesworth in Suffolk, a living to which 
he had been presented by his uncle, Mr. Plumer, shortly 
before the death of the latter. 
It had been anticipated by some, that one whose life 

1 ' On the Use and Abuse of Party Feeling in Eeligion,' 1822. A fourth 

edition was published in 1859. 



2Et. 35] TAKES HIS DEGREE AS D.D. 37 

had been passed almost exclusively in a college, would be 
hardly fitted for the very different sphere of a country 
parish. And certainly it could not fail to present many 
difficulties to one so little accustomed to that kind of 
work. But Mr. Whately did not easily yield to difficulties, 
small or great ; whatever he undertook he set himself to 
master in right earnest, undeterred by discouragements or 
hindrances. He applied himself to remedy abuses and 
promote the welfare, temporal and spiritual, of his parish- 
ioners, by carrying out various plans of usefulness in those 
days little employed. In all these my mother heartily 
co-operated. He established, among other means of im- 
provement, a weekly Bible lecture ; and it was at this that 
he delivered the series of discourses which form the basis 
of his s Scripture Revelations on a Future State.' 

But these labours of love were to be brought to a very 
speedy close. The damp climate of Halesworth made 
serious inroads on his wife's constitution. Several times 
her life was in danger ; and more than once her husband's 
medical knowledge and singular presence of mind and 
promptness of action were called into play, both in her 
case and that of a sister who had come to nurse her, and 
had been herself seized with typhus fever of the most 
alarming kind. Her life seemed to have been, humanly 
speaking, saved by her brother-in-law's prompt decision 
and unwearied care. 

In 1825 1 Mr. Whately took his degree as Doctor of 
Divinity, and was in the same year appointed, by Lord 
Grrenville, Principal of Alban HalL On this he removed 
with his family to Oxford, intending to spend the vacations 
at Halesworth ; but after two or three year's trial, it became 
Evident that even these occasional residences could only be 
continued at the risk of his wife's life. He therefore gave 
up residence, and, placing a valued and trusted curate in 

1 The following is the list, taken from the Oxford Calendars, of Principals 
and Vice -Principals of Alban Hall for a few years from this time. 

1825. ' -Elmsley. Cramer, V.P. 

1826. Whately. Newman, „ 
1827 to 1834. Whately. Hinds s „ 



38 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [1825 

the rectory, contented himself with solitary visits to the 
parish three or four times a year, passing the long vaca- 
tions with his family either at the sea, or at Tunbridge 
Wells, in the neighbourhood of his wife's relations, to 

whom he was strongly attached. 

The new sphere of work at Alban Hall was apparently 
a more congenial one than that of Halesworth ; but the 
difficulties, in a different way, were quite as great. Alban 
Hall had gradually, either from neglect or mismanage- 
ment, become a kind of ; Botany Bay' to the University 
— a place where students were sent who were considered 
too idle and dissipated to be received elsewhere. But the 
new Principal was not one to suffer this, and with his 
usual energetic resolution he set himself to remedy the 
evil. He continued to get rid of some of the useless 
members : and determined, first, never to receive into the 
Hall any who had been obliged to quit their college, and, 
secondly, to take his share in the lectures. And, lastly, 
he placed on a reasonable and moderate footing that 
scandal of many Oxford bodies, the 6 Buttery ' establish- 
ment. These measures were quite sufficient to alter the 
character of the Hall, and eventually the members who 
resorted to it were so great that he built additional rooms, 
which were all occupied when he resigned. 

When Dr. Hinds succeeded Mr. Xewman as Vice-Prin- 
cipal, the character of the Hall had already been estab- 
lished -. but he remembers that a few of the old set still 
remained, whom they used to designate ' Albani Patres' 
— well-conducted and respectable, but beyond the usual 
asre of undergraduates. In the year of his settlement at 
Alban Hall (1826) are dated the letters now to be pre- 
sented to the reader. The first is to his friend Mr. Senior, 
on a subject which much occupied the minds of both — 
that of Political Economy. Both had done much to rescue 
this study from the undue prejudice with which it was 
generally regarded; and through life both laboured to 
bring the public mind to a clearer understanding of what 
it really was intended to teach, and of its importance to 
the general welfare of mankind. 



Mr. 38] VIEWS OX POLITICAL ECONOMY. 39 

To N. Senior, Esq. 

'1826. 

C I have looked over your article, as well as the lectures, 1 
and approve your design. You will see I have again 
mangled your first, though I think it much improved. As 
you will perhaps have several new hearers, it may be 
worth while to prefix a few sentences in vindication of the 
science, as that is what needs to be perpetually repeated 
in the most varied forms. It may be worth observing, 
that the pursuit of private wealth can be but harmless, 
and may degenerate into gross avarice, while that of public 
wealth is patriotism and charity; yet those who think the 
former allowable, and themselves practise it, raise a sense- 
less outcry against the latter, like Seneca rolling in riches, 
and declaiming in favour of poverty ; and you may con- 
gratulate your hearers (some of them young enough to 
need being reminded of it) that the abusive names lavished 
on the study afford a presumption that it is not to be 
assailed by argument. As there are also many of them 
clergymen, or clerical students, they may be reminded, 
that to charge the science itself with every error, real or 
supposed, of every professor of it, is a procedure which 
they would not approve, if applied, as it easily may be, in 
the case of theology.' 

The next is addressed to his old and valued friend, Mr. 
Philip Duncan, who, together with his elder brother, were 
through life among his highly-prized associates. It is a 
criticism of a series of logical lectures which had just 
appeared : — 

' Oriel College, 1826. 

' It is said that Sir W. Ealeigh gave his bailiff some 
potatoes, with directions to sow them, having heard of 
their being* cultivated with advantage in America. At 
the time appointed in his memorandum-book he sent him 

1 Senior's Lectures on Political Economy (to the Professorship of which 
science at Oxford, founded by Mr. Drummond of Albury, he had just been 
appointed) were published from 1827 to 1831. 



40 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1826 

to collect the produce, and received a handful of the 
berries. " Ah, well," he said, " I feared they would not 
do here ; go, plough the field and sow wheat." Now, if 
this ploughing had not casually turned up the potatoes, 
he might have written a treatise on the inexpediency of 
cultivating them. For " potatoes " read " logic," and, 
mutatis mutandis, you have Dr. Jardine's book. 1 He 
was doubtless right, on being appointed lecturer on a 
subject of which he was totally and profoundly ignorant, 
to teach something which he did understand; thence, 
according to the common plan of measuring other men's 
corn by his own bushel, he concludes that what he cannot 
understand, or cannot teach, no one else can — that what- 
ever plan he has hit upon was untried before, etc. etc. 
But he seems on the whole to have been a good tutor con- 
sidering, and though his lectures were likely to give his 
pupils an extensive superficial arid vanity-feeding smatter- 
ing, they had, probably, less of this fault than most of those 
in Scotland. 5 

It was in this year (1826) that the £ Logic 'was published. 
This work had originally been written in articles for the 
6 Encyclopaedia Metropoiitana.' *The task undertaken by 
the writer was one of no ordinary difficulty; it was not 
the originating of a new science, but the resuscitation of 
an old and half-defunct one. The study of logic, formerly 
pursued with great and creditable devotion, had, in latter 
years, fallen into disrepute among the more intellectual 
class in the University. It was pursued in the schools at 
Oxford merely by committing to heart the technical rules 
of the compendium of Dr. Aldrich. These were by no 
means without their utility as a tough mental exercise, 
and many an Oxonian might remember with gratitude 
the edge which it gave to his powers of reasoning, particu- 
larly if unacquainted with the more valuable discipline 
of mathematics. It was Whately's great and eminently 

1 ' Jardine, Outlines of Philosophical Education ; illustrated by the 
Method of Teaching the Logic or First Class of Philosophy in the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow/ 1818. 



2Et. 30] HIS FRIENDSHIP FOR ARNOLD. 41 

successful effort to raise the study from tins inferior con- 
dition to something approaching a scientific character. 1 

The ' Rhetoric ' followed the ' Logic ' in 1828. Like its 
predecessor, it had been originally written for the ' En- 
cyclopaedia.' The title, however Aristotelian, was not an 
attractive one to general readers, and he often regretted 
it in after years, as giving an erroneous impression of the 
general scope and aim of the work ; which is, in fact, a 
series of lessons on the art of composition, and on the 
means to be employed for the arrangement of the matter 
of a discourse, whether written or spoken, so as to con- 
vince the understanding, persuade the will, and move the 
feelings. 

Bishop Hinds has described the influence of the Oriel 
Common Room as a centre of literary and philosophical 
activity. Oxford, at that time, was distinguished by a 
constellation of "talent and learning in various departments 
which has perhaps rarely been surpassed, if equalled, in 
any given time and place. Besides Copleston and Whately, 
the names of Newman, Pusey, Keble, Arnold, Hawkins, 
Hinds, Froude, Wilberforce, Blanco White, and others, 
appear in that brilliant assembly of gifted and eminent 
men. Most of these were on intimate terms with the 
Principal of Alban Hall ; several were among his closest 
friends.* 

The ' Life ' of Dr. Arnold sufficiently bears testimony to 
that pure, warm, and noble friendship which united these 
two eminent men till the death of the younger. The 
respective marriages of the two friends still further sealed 
and cemented this happy union ; and the frequent inter- 
changes of visits from one circle to the other — parents and 
children alike enjoying the free and unrestrained inter- 
course of domestic life together, according to their several 
ages and pursuits — must ever be held in tender and grate- 
ful remembrance by the scattered and bereaved survivors 
of that happy band of friends. In the letters from Rugby, 
frequent and affectionate mention is made of the pleasure 

1 The present Oxford Professor, Mr. Wall, is a pupil of Archbishop 
Whately. 



42 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1828 

conferred by Dr. Whately's visits, his lively interest in his 
friend's concerns, his tenderness for the children, and his 
varied and interesting conversation. 

And Dr. Whately never failed to bear a hearty and 
earnest testimony to the merits of Dr. Arnold. At an early 
stage of his career, his friend had pointed out, to those 
judges who were discouraged by the crudities of Arnold's 
early essays, the 6 great capability of growth ' which he 
believed to be involved in these apparently unpromising 
attempts. How truly and fully his prophecy was carried 
out, the world now knows. 

It may appear strange that so few records remain of 
this friendship in the letters before us ; but Dr. Arnold 
was not in the habit of preserving correspondence, and 
one only, of which a copy has been made, remains of Dr. 
Whately's many letters to this loved and valued friend. 

With Mr, Keble much pleasant intercourse was enjoyed 
at Oxford ; and it was during a visit paid by him to 
Halesworth that the manuscript poems which now form 
the c Christian Year ' were read by the writer to his host 
and hostess, who were among the earliest friends who 
suggested its publication. 

The familiarity of Dr. Xewman with Dr. Whately, con- 
nected as it is with points of so much interest in the lives 
of both, belongs to this period of their history. And the 
account of it is best given in the words of the great Oxford 
leader's own c Apologia ' : — 

' And now as to Dr. Whately. I owe him a great. deal. 
He was a man of generous and warm heart. He was 
particularly loyal to his friends, and, to use the common 
phrase, "all his geese were swans." While I was still 
awkward and timid, in 1822, he took me by the hand, and 
acted the part to me of a gentle and encouraging instructor. 
He, emphatically, opened my mind, and taught me to 
think and to use my reason. . . . He had clone his work 
towards me, or nearly so, when he had taught me to see 
with my own eyes, and to walk with my own feet. Xot 
that I had not a good deal to learn from others still, but 
I influenced them as well as they me, and co-operated 



Mt. 41] INTIMACY WITH KEBLE AXD NEWMAN. 43 

rather than merely concurred with them. As to Dr. 
Whately, his mind was too different from mine for lis to 
remain long on one line. I recollect how dissatisfied he 
was with an article of mine in the "London Beview," 
which Blanco White good-humouredly only called Platonic. 
When I was diverging from him (which he did not like), 
I thought of dedicating my first book to him, in words to 
the effect that he had not only taught me to think, but to 
think for myself. ... I have always felt a real affection 
for what I must call his memory, for thenceforward he 
made himself dead to me. My reason told me that it was 
impossible that we could have got on together longer, yet 
I loved him too much to bid him farewell without pain. 
After a few years had passed, I began to believe that his 
influence on me, in a higher respect than intellectual ad- 
vance (I will not say through his fault), had not been 
satisfactory. I believe that he has inserted sharp things 
in his later works about me ; they have never come in my 
way, and I have not thought it necessary to seek out 
what would pain me so much in the reading. 

6 What he did for me, in point of religious opinion, was 
first to teach me the existence of the Church as a sub- 
stantive body or corporation; next to fix in me those anti- 
Erastian views of Church polity, which were one of the 
most prominent features of the Tractarian movement.' J 

1 Dr. Xewman proceeds to describe tie effect produced on his mind by 
another little book which appeared about the same time (1826), and which 
public opinion has uniformly attributed to "Whately : although, as he never 
avowed the authorship, the editor has felt some scruple as to mentioning it 
in connexion with his name. This able tract (it has been said) is now out 
of date, because the opinions respecting the separation of Church from State, 
which it advocated, strange then to a Churchman, are now held by all but 
a few Churchmen : — 

' In the year 1826, in the course of a walk, Eroude said much to me about 
a work then published, called "Letters on the Church, by an Episcopalian." 
He said that it would make my blood boil. It was certainly a most power- 
ful composition. One of our common friends told me, that after reading it 
he could not keep still, but went on walking up and down his room. It 
was ascribed at once to Whately. I gave eager expression to the contrary 
opinion, but I found the belief of Oxford in the affirmative to be too strong 
for me. Rightly or wrongly, I yielded to the general voice ; and I have 
never heard, then or since, of any disclaimer of authorship on the part of 



44 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1828 

It was at this per: Oxford career, perhaps 

the happiest of his life, that his remarkable conversa- 
tional powers just began to be widely appreciated. The 
present opportunity may therefore serve for introducing a 
communication made to the writer of this memoir re- 
sting him by one of his associates of early times,, Dr. 
Mayo the physician : — 

• In latter years our lives were thrown into different 
channels, and I saw very little of him ; but I will make a 
few remarks as to what my early acquaintance with his 
intellect suggested to me. His aptitude for inductive 
and deductive reasoning was nearly equal : and he once 
told me that his mental powers in early life changed from 
the pure scientific type to that which his friends recog- 
nised in him afterwards — namely, the dealing with con- 
tingent matter. 

c None who knew your father well could forget the 
pleasure which his society afforded, but life with him was 
a continual performance of a series of duties : and it is 
possible that his powers, as a man of great wit and vivid 
imagination, mav not have been sufficiently understood 
except by his immediate friends, though his wit often 
transfused itself into his public speeches. Witness his 
reply to some one in the House of Lords, who recom- 
mended a system of frequent examinations into the ac- 
quirements of certain learners — that it was like pulling 
up a plant repeatedly by its root to see how it grows. 
Bacon has never found a cultivator who pos.--r.-sed more of 
hi- own acquaintance of the analogies embraced by real 
wit. than your father. I am Riving vou unconnected re- 

Dr. Yvhately. The main positions of this able essay ane these — first, that 
:h and State should be independent of each other: he speaks of the 
Inty :: piotes ing against the profanation of Christ's kingdom, by that 
double usurpati >n the interference :: the Church in temporals, of the State 
in - iritaals ; and. secondly, That the Church may justly and by right retain 
its property, though separated from the State. The authoi of this work, 
whoevei he may be, rgoes ml I bh these points with great force and 
ingenuity and with i :::oroughgo:^_ rel ;:;ence, which pei 

the ;i:::-unistance that he w rote not in ji ' at in the 

professed .:::::; :: Scotch episcopalian. His work had a gradua 
-■; effect :n my mind." — Jpoty : Vita Sua, pp. 6S-7 ( ~>. 



41] TOWERS OF ANECDOTE AND REPARTEE. 45 

marks ; the following relates to Lis profession. From some 
conversation which I once had with him, I suspect that one 
of his greatest feats of self-command, under high principle, 

- his abstaining from extemporaneous preaching, in 
which he felt his own capacity for producing a great and 
remarkable effect, but which, if my recollection is correct, 
he distrusted as an instrument of pulpit oratory.' 

Few eminent men, perhaps, have had more anecdotes 
and witty sayings ascribed to them than he has ; but it 
must be owned, also, that few have had more apocryphal 
stories recklessly attributed to them. Even in his lifetime, 
anecdotes, puns, and riddles of the most inferior character, 
which had been going the round of third-rate newspapers 
and journals for years, were continually ascribed to him; 
and he has been besieged with letters proposing answers 
to riddles and questions, attributed to him without a 
shadow of foundation. 

In fact, there was a peculiarity in his brilliant sayings 
which very few have been able to seize. He generally put 
forth an anecdote or a witticism as an illustration of some 
important principle, or to give point to some carefully- 
weighed and clearly-stated argument ; but — as one who 
knew him well has justly remarked— the majority of his 
hearers forgot the argument, and remembered only the 
anecdote or jest. And, so repeated, his wit not only lost 
its force by being taken separately from the subject it 
was intended to illustrate, but was also likely to lead to 
the false impression that he was a mere propounder and 
retailer of ' good things,' as such, for no purpose but to 
make his audience laugh. 

The following fragments, from the pen of a valued friend 
and near connexion, will illustrate the character of his 
powers of anecdote and repartee. One day, when con- 
versing with this friend, something was said on the subject 
of religious persecution ; on which he remarked, ' It is no 
wonder that some English people have a taste for perse- 
cuting on account of religion, since it is the first lesson 
that most are taught in their nurseries.' His friend ex- 
pressed his incredulity, and denied that he, at least, had 



46 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [l82S 

been taught it. e Are you sure ? ' replied Dr. Whately. 
' What think you of this — 

Old Daddy Long-legs won't say his prayers, 

Take him by the left leg, and throw him downstairs ? 

If that is not religious persecution, what is ? ' 

Being absolutely compelled, by the unwise solicitations 
of a clerical friend, to give his opinion as to that friend's 
performance of the service, he told him — 'Well, then, if 
you really wish to know what I think of your reading, I 
should say there are only two parts of the service you 
read well, and those you read unexceptionably.' — f And 
what are those ? ' said the clergyman. — ' They are, " Here 
endeth the first lesson," and "Here endeth the second 
lesson." ' 

6 What do you mean. Whately ? ' 

f I mean.' he replied, 'that these parts you read in your 
own natural voice and manner, which are very good : the 
rest is all artificial and assumed.' It may be added that 
his friend took the hint, altered his style, and became a 
very good reader. 

He often related another incident, illustrating his 
strongly expressed opinion (see his ' Rhetoric ') that the 
natural voice and manner are the best adapted to public 
speaking and reading, and also less trying to the voice 
than the artificial tone so generally preferred. A clerical 
friend of his, who had been accustomed to make use of 
this artificial tone, complained to him that he was suffering 
so much from weakness of the throat, he feared he must 
resign his post. Dr. Whately told him that he believed, 
if he would change his style of reading, and deliver the 
service in his natural voice, he would find it much less 
fatiguing. ' Oh,' said his friend, ' that is all very well for 
you who have a powerful voice ; but mine is so feeble that 
it would be impossible to make myself heard in a church 
if I did not speak in an artificial tone.' 

6 1 believe you are mistaken,' replied the former ; Q you 
would find that even a weak voice would be better heard, 
and at the expense of less fatigue, if the tone were a 
natural one.' 



JEt. 41] LETTER TO DR. COPLESTON. 47 

The other appeared unconvinced ; but meeting his ad- 
viser some time after, he told him he had at last come 
round to his view. The weakness in his throat had so 
increased that he was on the point of retiring from active 
duty, but resolved, as a desperate final effort, to try the 
experiment of altering his manner of reading and speak- 
ing. He did so, and not only succeeded beyond his hopes 
in making himself heard, but found his voice so much less 
fatigued by the effort, that he was able to continue his 
employment. 

To this period belongs the following letter, addressed to 
Dr. Copleston, who had been appointed Bishop of Llan- 
daff. 

'Sept. 28, 1828. 

c My dear Lord, — It would have given me the greatest 
pleasure to accept your friendly invitation, but that I am 
detained by what may be rightly called a press of business, 
i.e. business of the press. I have no hard work, however, 
to do, which makes me wonder the more that I have had 
a succession of bilious attacks, at short intervals, ever since 
I left Tunbridge Wells. They seem to be going about very 
much in many parts ; Mrs. W. has not been exempt. As 
soon as my present work is out of hand, I must set about 
preparing a new edition of the " Logic ?? — my " Logic," as 
it is always and will be always called. No acknowledg- 
ments will ever transfer to another the credit of a book 
which is published with one's name ; the only way, I be- 
lieve, in which it could be done, would be to make no 
acknowledgments, and indicate a wish to conceal the 
assistance received. 

' By-the-bye, I forget whether I told you of a curious 
adventure of my brother's : he was transacting some busi- 
ness at the Bank, and having in one of the offices signed 
his name, the clerk politely asked whether he was the Dr. 
Whately from whose work on " Logic " he had derived so 
much gratification. My brother expressed his surprise ; 
on which he told him that logic was his favourite study, 
and that he had felt particular obligations to this book. 



48 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1828 

Presently he went into another office in the Bank, and 
there the clerk asked hirn the very same question. 

' All this belongs as much at least to you as to me, and 
I hope it may mitigate your suspicion (which I have often 
heard you express), that the world is not ripe for a work 
of the kind. 

' When you speak of Haw^kins or me writing a tract for 
distribution, you should remember how long ago he wrote 
that excellent, one, " The Christian's Manual," on which 
the Society l have been deliberating these two years, and 
have not yet placed it on their list. I should, perhaps, 
find it difficult to write what would give satisfaction at 
once to others and myself. Almost all former writers use 
arguments of which a Papist may and generally does avail 
himself; or such as are drawn from the Jewish Church, 
which do not apply ; or drawn from a misinterpretation of 
the word " unity " as employed in Scripture. And hardly 
any distinguish between the two very different cases, of a 
man who himself secedes, and one who has been brought 
up a Dissenter. The latter case is one of much difficulty. 

6 Your goddaughter threatens to outgrow her strength; 
she requires constant care to support her under such a 
prodigious shoot. She is very forward in understanding, 
but not alarmingly so. My plans of education fully answer 
my expectations : she has never yet learned anything as a 
task, and that, considering she has learned more than 
most, will make tasks far lighter when they do come ; and 
she has never yet learned anything by rote, and I trust 
never will, till she turns Papist. 

' They say a letter should be a picture of the writer ; if 
so, this ought to have been on yellow paper.' 

The allusion to his children's education is very charac- 
teristic. He greatly objected to teaching children to learn 
by, rote what they did not understand. He used to say, 
that to teach thus mechanically, in the hope that the chil- 
dren would afterwards find out the meaning of what they 

1 The Christian Knowledge Societv. 



2Et. 41] LETTER TO REV, J. EADELEY. 49 

had learned, was to make, them ' swallow their food first, 
and chew it afterwards.' 

'When Mrs. Whately and I first married,' he observed, 
many years later, 1 ' one of the first things we agreed upon 
was, that should Providence send us children, we would 
never teach them anything that they did not understand.' 
f Not even their prayers, my Lord ? ' asked the person ad- 
dressed. ' No, not even their prayers,' he replied. To the 
custom of teaching children of tender age to repeat prayers 
by rote, without attending to their sense, he objected even 
more strongly than to any other kind of mechanical teach- 
ing ; as he considered it inculcated the idea, that a per- 
son is praying when merely repeating a form of words in 
which the mind and feelings have no part, which is de- 
structive of the very essence of devotion. 

The following extract from a letter to the Eev. J. Badeley, 
on the spirit of persecution in and out of our Church, will 
not be out of place here ; it is analogous to much which 
appears in his various essays on the peculiarities of the 
Church of Eome : — 

' Alban Hall: April 3, 1829. 

' I wish you to observe that the unpersecuting spirit of 
our Church is only that of (I would I could say all) her 
individual members : no declaration was ever made by our 
Church, as a body, that it is unchristian to inflict secular 
coercion and punishment on professors of a false religion. 
A man who should hold (as Bishop Jewel and others of 
the Eeformers did) the right, and the duty, of putting 
down heresy by civil penalties (though I should think 
him, so far, an unenlightened Christian) might be an un- 
impeachable member of our Church. He might defy you 
to show anything against him in the Articles; and if you 
appealed to the Canons, you would find them all on his 
side. Whether a man be Papist or Protestant in name, 
let him beware chiefly of Old Adam.' 

*This letter was in all probability occasioned by the 

1 At Dublin. 
E 



50 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1829 

controversy which agitated England this spring, respect- 
ing the admission of Koman Catholics to ParliameDt. In 
Oxford that agitation was felt with peculiar strength, be- 
cause, in addition to the general interest which politico- 
religious questions excited in its society, there was the 
special excitement occasioned by the personal question, 
whether Mr. Peel, the great promoter of the change, should 
continue to be Member for the University. As for Dr, 
Whately's share in this temporary convulsion, it amounted 
to no more than this, that he unhesitatingly supported a 
measure of which he had always, in less promising times, 
professed himself the staunch adherent. But the effect 
produced on the knot of his friends and pupils was strong, 
and disheartening. It had no small influence in producing 
the trials and difficulties of his after-life. It is particu- 
larly observable, that several of those who were most con- 
spicuous in the Oxford or Tractarian movement of some 
years later — nay, who followed that movement to its ulti- 
mate consequences, into the communion of the Church of 
Eome — ceased, now, to walk further with those whom, 
in their temporary Anglican zeal, they regarded, like 
Whately, as traitors to the Establishment. Dr. Newman 
has avowed that this was the case with himself. ' In the 
beginning of 1829 came the grand breach between Dr. 
Whately and me; Mr. Peel's attempted re-election was 
the occasion of it. I think, in 1827 or 1828, I had voted 
in the minority when the petition to Parliament against 
the Catholic claims was brought into Convocation. I did 
so mainly on the views suggested to me by the theory of 
the " Letters of an Episcopalian." ... I took part against 
Mr. Peel on a simple academical, not at all on an ecclesi- 
astical or a political ground ; and this I professed at the 
time. . . . Also by this time I was under the influence of 
Keble and Fvoude, who, in addition to the reasons I have 
given, disliked the Duke's change of policy as dictated by 
liberalism.' Dr. Newman then proceeds to tell, with an 
infinity of quiet humour, the anecdote which has been 
quoted so often from his book, concerning the trick played 
by Whately on him, in inviting him to meet a dinner- 



JEt. 42] RUPTURE WITH NEWMAN. 51 

party of the ' two-bottle orthodox,' as a playful punish- 
ment for his abandonment of the liberal side.* 

Henceforth, however, there can be little doubt that 
Whately felt his position in the University less agreeable 
than it had formerly been. Strong political excitement 
widened the breach of feeling which had always existed, 
between him and the old 'high-and-dry ' majority of the 
residents. And those younger and more far-reaching 
spirits, with whom his sympathies had chiefly lain — of 
whom Xewman, in his then state of mind, may be taken 
as an instance — were now detached from him, not because 
they had joined the old school, but because they were 
forming to themselves a new school ; which began in fierce 
disapprobation of the ' liberal ' mode of dealing with the 
Church, and, after many vicissitudes of thought — from 
which Whately's unchangeable consistency was altogether 
alien — ended for the most part by abandoning that Church. 
Whately's adherents, beyond the limited circle of his 
attached friends, were now few, and shared his unpopu- 
larity. 

*In 1829 Whately was elected Professor of Political 
Economy, in succession to Senior ; his tenure of the office, 
however, was cut short, by his appointment to Dublin in 
1831. He published an introductory course of lectures 
(1831 ), of which the main purpose, in accordance with his 
usual love for clearing up difficulties of thought by preci- 
sion of language, was that of establishing the real scope 
and purpose of the science — which he described as 'to 
enquire into the nature, production, and distribution of 
wealth, not its connection with virtue and happiness.' To 
obviate the fallacies to which, in his opinion, the popular 
denomination of the science had given rise, he proposed 
to substitute for it that of ' Catallactics, 5 or the science of 
exchanges. But this new nomenclature did not succeed.* 

In this year was passed the Bill for Eoman Catholic 
Emancipation, in consequence of which Sir Robert Peel 
lost his re-election at Oxford. Dr. Whately was among 
the verv few ( heads of houses ' who gave him his vote and 

E 2 



52 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1829 

advocated his cause, Through life he maintained this 
principle firmly — that to exclude any class of men from 
public offices, in consequence of their religion, was to 
make Christ's a ' kingdom of this world,' which He and 
His disciples had distinctly and expressly disclaimed ; and 
also, that by tempting persons whose ambition might be 
stronger than their scruples, to profess a religion they 
believed false, in order to insure their worldly advance- 
ment, such measures were holding out a premium to 
hypocrisy and false profession. He would not argue on 
the ground that such-and-such persons were not likely to 
be fit to hold office ; but he considered that the electors- 
should be allowed to exercise their own judgment on such 
cases, and to elect the person they considered most worthy 5 
being responsible to Grod and their own consciences for 
their choice, 

He also considered that the real power of taking part in 
the government is given already, wherever the elective 
franchise exists ; and that to allow this last, and refuse a 
seat in Parliament, is simply to irritate the minds of the 
class excluded, without really crippling their power of 
action ; and he always appealed to history to show how 
uniformly the system of an excluded class, like the Helots 
and Gribeonites, had tended to injure the peace and pros- 
perity of a country. 1 

Dr. Whately often made severe and sarcastic remarks 
on the treatment Sir R. Peel at this time received from 
his former partisans ; those who supported him at this 
juncture being precisely those who had hitherto kept aloof 
from him, and vice versa. 

The editor of the 6 Encyclopaedia Metropolitana,' to 
which Dr. Whately was so valuable a contributor, wrote 
to him at this time, to tell him he had directed his pub- 
lisher to forward him a copy of a poem of his own, on 
6 Catholic Emancipation.' Dr. Whately replied, with his 
usual plainness of speech, by expressing a hope 6 he should 
not find more rhyme than reason in it.' The poem was 

3 See the Annotations to Bacon's 21st 'Essay of Delays/ 



JEt. 42] OPINIONS OX THE NATIONAL DISTRESS. 53 

not sent, but the editor evinced no mortification at the 
rebuff. 

It was about this time that Dr. Burgess, Bishop of 
Salisbury, having conceived a high opinion of Dr. Whately's 
powers from the publication of the ' Logic/ wrote to pro- 
pose that he should bring out an edition of Chillingworth's 
' Keligion of Protestants,' with some additions of his own, 
offering to bear him harmless as to the expense of pub- 
lishing the book in a cheap form for wide circulation. 
But his extreme scrupulousness on the subject of inde- 
pendence of action, and dread of even seeming to be in the 
position of a party tool, induced him to decline. 

In 1830 was published the third portion of his series of 
religious essays : that entitled ' The Errors of Eomanism.' 

The letter which follows, written in the beginning of 
this year, speaks for itself. It shows the anxious care 
with which Dr. Whately endeavoured to apportion the 
relief of distress, so as to avoid the danger so often incurred 
in times of scarcity, of creating distress in one direction 
while endeavouring to mend it in another. 

6 1 feel great doubts about the expediency of the cheap- 
bread system — at least, if I rightly understand it. At 
first I thought it might only be a plan for checking exor- 
bitant profits in the bakers, &c, by retailing, for a time, 
at wholesale price ; but your mention of a subscription to 
cover the loss, seems to imply that it is to be sold below 
prime cost. I need not say to you that I have no objec- 
tion to bestowing charity, but I doubt the general expedi- 
ency of this mode. If there is a certain quantity of corn 
in the country, which it is impossible (under the existing 
prohibition of importation) to increase, it is demonstrable 
that the more is eaten by one man, the less must be eaten 
by another. If, therefore, I buy a loaf, and give it to a 
poor man (or, which comes to the same, sell him two 
loaves at the price of one), I do a service indeed to that 
particular man, but, on the whole, I do nothing at all. It 
is true, the diminution of the total stock by that one loaf 
is imperceptible, the loss being immensely diffused and 



54 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1830-1 

the benefit concentrated ; and so, if you beg a pinch of 
snuff from each of your acquaintance, you might fill your 
own box, and nobody would miss any ; but still it is de- 
monstrable that (the total quantity being fixed) for every 
pinch of snuff in your box, somebody must take a pinch 
the less. In like manner it is demonstrable that you 
cannot benefit the poor in the way of food without increas- 
ing its quantity, though you may increase perceptibly the 
food of a small number at the expense of the community, 
and the quantity abstracted may be so small as not to be 
detected ; but if the example (and every charity ought to 
be such as to set a good example) should be followed in 
every parish, the consequence is demonstrable, that those 
who partook of this charity would be better fed, and those 
who did not, worse fed (supposing always the total amount 
of food the same) than before — and that would be all. 
You are trying to lengthen the blanket by cutting off a 
strip at one end and sewing it on at the other. I should 
not, however, object to this if the cheap food were be- 
stowed as a reivard, not on those in want merely, but on 
those of extraordinary sobriety, industry, and general 
good conduct. If good boys have a larger slice of cake 
than the rest, this does not indeed increase the amount of 
cake, but it may increase good conduct. I do not, how- 
ever, understand this to be the case. 

6 1 therefore greatly prefer giving (or, which comes to 
the same, selling cheap) coals, clothing, and other articles 
of which the quantity given is not subtracted from the 
total stock, but is produced in consequence of the demand. 
Of coal a great deal is not raised, or, if even raised, is left 
wasted, for want of an effectual demand; and if some 
society of vast wealth and beneficence would give a suit of 
flannel a year to every poor body in the kingdom, the 
other consumers of flannel would even be benefited in 
getting the article cheaper, through the increased pros- 
perity of the manufacturers. 

' As for food, 1 like particularly to have all the bones 
and scraps that would otherwise be wasted, collected for 
soup ; that does increase the quantity of food.' 



J£t. 44] NOMINATED ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 



CHAPTER III. 

1831—1832. 

His appointment to the See of Dublin — Various opinions respecting his 
elevation — Appears at a Levee without his Order — Climbing feats of his 
dog — Dissatisfaction at his elevation — Letter to Lacty Mary Shepherd on 
his imputed Sabellianism — Letter to Bishop of LlandafT on his appoint- 
ment to the Primacy — Starts for Dublin — Attacked by a Birmingham 
mob — Narrow escape at Holyhead — State of Protestant Church in Ireland 
— Question of Tithes— Arrives at Dublin — Enters on his official duties — 
His hospitable reception — His country-house at Redesdale — Anecdote 
of his rustic life — His simple tastes and pursuits — Apportions his time 
— His first Charge, and consequent exposure to public obloquy — Estab- 
lishment of National Education system — Renewed hostility to the Arch- 
bishop and his measures — Pounds a professorship of Political Economy 
— His weekly levees — Anecdotes of his Confirmation tours — His monthly 
dinners — Anecdotes of his controversial powers, and of his efforts to sup- 
press mendicancy — Letters to Miss Crabtree — Letter to Mr. Senior on 
Secondary Punishments — His opinions on Secondary Punishments — 
Letter to Sir T. Denman on same subject. 

This was the last summer of his Oxford life. 

The vacation, spent as usual between the seaside and 
his relatives at Tunbridge Wells, was closing, as it com- 
monly did, with one of the annual family visits to Dr. 
Arnold at Kugby, when the letter from Lord Grey, offering 
him the See of Dublin, reached him, having been for- 
warded to him from Oxford : — 

6 Private. 

1 Downing Street : Sept. 14, 1831. 

6 Eev. Sir, — Having been ordered by the King to re- 
commend for his Majesty's consideration the name of a 



56 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1831 

person well qualified by his eminence in the Church to 
fill the vacant Archbishopric of Dublin, I have, after the 
most diligent enquiry, satisfied myself that I shall best 
accomplish the object which his Majesty has in view by 
proposing that you should be nominated to this high 
situation. 

6 1 need not point out to you the important duties an- 
nexed to it, more especially at this moment, when the 
most unremitting care, under the direction of a firm, en- 
lightened, and conciliating spirit, will be required to pre- 
serve the Church of Ireland from the dangers with which 
it is surrounded. 

*An anxious wish to engage in this arduous task the 
qualities best fitted for its successful execution, and the 
persuasion, derived from your high reputation, that they 
will be found in you, have alone induced me to make this 
offer, your acceptance of which will afford me the sincerest 
pleasure. May I request an early answer to this com- 
munication ? 

c I remain, with great respect, sir, 

6 Your very obedient, humble servant, 

' Grey.' 

The sense of his merits and confidence in his powers, 
thus expressed by Lord Grey, could not but be gratifying 
to him as well as to his friends ; but in other respects the 
announcement was one rather of painful anxiety than of 
pleasure. He received it in his usual manner. The letter 
was placed in his hands at the breakfast table ; he glanced 
over it, and, quietly putting it by, talked at breakfast of 
indifferent subjects; no one suspected that it contained 
matter of so much interest to all present. 

* He had a short struggle,' Mrs. Whately writes in her 
Eeminiscences, i in making up his mind to accept an office 
which to him involved much personal sacrifice. He had 
to resign a mode of life to which he was much attached, 
with duties in which he took a great interest, and among 
friends whose society was both dear and agreeable to him : 
while, on the other hand, great and painful responsibilities, 



JEt. 44] REASONS FOR HIS ELEVATION. 57 

duties as yet undefined, and difficulties little known, must 
inevitably meet him in Ireland. To balance all which, he 
did not possess even the ordinary love of place or desire 
of distinction, in the vulgar sense of the word. Nor did 
he want wealth, for we enjoyed a competence which met 
our wants and wishes. But the conviction that an im- 
portant line of duty was opened to him, decided his 
acceptance.' 

*That Whately's lofty character and high reputation as a 
scholar and a divine fully justified his elevation was ad- 
mitted by all. But there was much speculation, at the 
time, as to what especial reason could have occasioned an 
appointment so much out of the common run, open to 
cavil from so many quarters, and so little ' safe ' in the 
ordinary ministerial sense of the word. Whately had 
neither family nor personal interest, nor connexion with 
Ireland ; he was entirely detached from all party, religious 
or political ; he stood alone, in the insulation of a singu- 
larly proud as well as independent mind. We have Lord 
Grey's testimony (given in his lordship's evidence before 
the Committee appointed to enquire into National Educa- 
tion in Ireland, 1837), that when he offered him the arch- 
bishopric, he had never spoken to, written to, or to his 
knowledge seen him.* 

c When he was appointed to the archbishopric,' says his 
friend and (at that time) almost inseparable companion, 
Bishop Hinds, ' his tvork, its importance, its difficulties, 
and its responsibilities, absorbed all his thoughts. He 
said to me, again and again, " My brain is written within 
and without, lamentation, and mourning, and woe ; " and 
applied to himself those lines of Virgil — 

Et me, quern dudum non ulla injecta movebant 
Tela, omnes terrent aurse, sonus exeitat omnis. 

' The external circumstances of his elevation, instead of 
being in any way compensatory, were not even a set-off 
against the sacrifice of the free and independent habits of 
his life hitherto. The gilding of the pill served only to 
make it harder to swallow. The Order of St. Patrick, when 



58 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1831 

he was obliged to wear it, hung round his neck as a thing 
that was in his way, and which he would gladly, if he 
could, have taken into a corner. On his first visit to 
London, he presented himself at William the Fourth's 
levee without it — not designedly, but simply because he 
had never thought of it. The King said to some one 
near him, " Is the Archbishop of Dublin ashamed of his 
Order ? " The remark was repeated, a message sent to 
Dublin for it ; and after a long search, and breaking open 
of some locks, it was found and despatched to him, in 
time for his being duly equipped in it on his next ap- 
pearance at Court. 

6 He went to dine one day with the Lord-Lieutenant, 
and on this occasion the Order was not forgotten ; but, in 
freeing himself from some annoyance it caused him, it 
became sadly misplaced. Lord Anglesey stepped to him 
and said, f( Pardon me, Archbishop, but will you permit 
me to put your Order right ? " and proceeded to do so, 
the Archbishop goodnaturedly saying, tc If I had earned 
mine as your Excellency has yours, I dare say I should 
think more about it." ' 

Another trait, cited by Dr. Hinds, of his manner of re- 
ceiving this first announcement of his new dignity, is 
equally indicative of the same feeling. 

His love of exhibiting the climbing feats of his dog in 
Christchurch meadow, has been alluded to by Mr. Boult- 
bee. On this memorable visit to Rugby he had taken the 
dog with him. On the morning in which he had received 
Lord Grey's letter, Dr. Hinds writes : 6 A visitor arrived 
who was a stranger to him, and was asked out to see the 
feats of his climbing dog. The animal performed as usual, 
and when he had reached his highest point of ascent, and 
was beginning his yell of wailing, Whately turned to the 
stranger and said, " What do you think of that ? " Visitor : 
" I think that some besides the dog, when they find them- 
selves at the top of the tree, would give the world they 
could get down again." Whately : " Arnold has told you." 
Visitor : " Has told me what ? " Whately : " That I have 
been offered the Archbishopric of Dublin." Visitor : " I 



^Et. 44 J CHANGE IN HIS MODE OF LIFE. 59 

am very happy to hear it, but this, I assure you, is the 
first intimation I have had of it, and when my remark was 
made I had not the remotest idea that the thing was likely 
to take place." ' 

These recreations indeed were never entirely given up ; 
but the Whately of Christchurch meadow was changed — 
those pleasant chapters of his earlier life were closed for 
ever. A life of anxious toil, disappointment, misappre- 
hension — often fruitless labours, only repaid by obloquy — 
philanthropic efforts met with suspicion — the sickness of 
heart of frequent failures — all this and more awaited him ; 
fame indeed, and sometimes brilliant and gratifying tri- 
butes to his endeavours, valued friendships, too, to cheer 
him under trial ; but the rest and the freedom of his old 
life were gone, and on earth there was little that could 
replace it. But he laboured for no earthly reward, and 
through all the years of toil and trial which were now to 
fall to his lot he never seems to have repented the de- 
cision he had made, conscientiously and deliberately, at 
the call of duty. 

The words of his old friend the Bishop of LlandafF will 
further illustrate the spirit in which he entered on his new 
office. ' Dr. Whately/ writes the Bishop, ' accepted the 
arduous station proposed to him, purely, I believe, from 
public spirit and a sense of duty. Wealth, honour, and 
power, and title have no charms for him. He has great 
energy and intrepidity — a hardihood which sustains him 
against obloquy, when he knows he is discharging a duty, 
and he is generous and disinterested almost to a fault. 
His enlarged views, his sincerity, and his freedom from 
prejudice, are more than a compensation for his want of 
conciliating manners. When his character is understood, 
he will, I think, acquire more influence with the Irish 
than he would with the English.' l 

1 He said in the House of Lords (Aug. 1, 1833), that on the first commu- 
nication which he received from Lord Grey, he made a spontaneous offer to 
consent to the diminution of the revenues of the see during his own life, 
provided it should appear that the general interests of the Protestant religion 
could be benefited thereby. 



60 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP YTHATELY. [1S3I 

A similar tribute was given to Lis cliaracter by bis 
friend Dr. Arnold, some time later : — 

•' NoWj I am sure that, in -point of real essential holiness, 
as far as man can judge, there does not live a truer 
Christian than Whately ; and it d ; es grieve me m : st le Bf ly 

bear people speak of him as a dangerous and latitudi- 
narian character, because in him the intellectual part of 
his nature keeps pace with the spiritual/ 

And again : • In church matters they the 'bovernment) 
have rat Whately, and a signal blessing it is that they 
ha^e him and listen to him; a man so good and so great 
that no folly or wickedness of the most vile of factions 
"ill move him from his own purposes, or pro v lie him in 
disgust to forsake the defence of the Temple. 5 

*At the same time (and this appears to be the proper 
place to notice it), the appointment was one which gave 
great dissatisfaction to a large class :: the religions as 
well as the political world. Whately's strong opinions 
though be had never Veen so active as many ■: ~ii-rs in 
urffhig them in favour of Catholic Emancipation were, no 
doubt, the fundamental cause of much of thi? :<ni: jsition. 
bl^re politics, unconnected with religion, bad als>: : good 
deal to answer for in the matter. Eut there were num- 
bers, also, who honestly looked on him as a dangerous 
man. and all but heterodox in opinions. To us of this 
generation, who have to take our side in religions battles 
of far more searching importance — who are accustomed 
to see men. high in the confidence of respective church 
parties, assume the boldest license in approach towards 
B >manism on the one side, and Rationalism : n the other — 
it seems almost out of date to notice the special gi undsof 
disqualification which were then urged against Whately. 
These were — his views on the Sal >ataiian question, and 
certain doctrinal statements of his respecting the cha- 
racter and attributes of the Saviour, which were regarded 
as merging on Sahellianisnu On the first of these subjects, 
religious opinion in general, in the of Engl 

least, has pretty nearly come round to bim : the se : n 3 is 
of an order which it would I - mt of place t 



2Et. 44] LETTER TO LADY MARY SHEPHERD. 61 

length in these pages. Enough to say, that the hostility 
engendered by it is long ago forgotten, except by a very 
few champions of rigid verbal orthodoxy, who think it sin 
to make any allowance for the various forms under which 
Truth, on certain very abstruse subjects, presents itself to 
different minds, each equally determined to abide by it. 
'To which of its members,' says a critic of some years 
later, ' is the Church — or the country — more indebted than 
to Archbishop Whately ? But because he ventured to 
deny that the Fourth Commandment is still binding, and 
reminded his logical pupils that the word 'persona means 
not an individual but a character, he is believed by thou- 
sands to be a u dangerous man." '* 

The following letter to a valued friend was written at 
this time, and has reference to the imputation of Sabel- 
lianism, to which allusion has already been made : — 

'Alban Hall: Sept. 25, 1831. 
6 Dear Madam, — Having in the last (4th) edition of the 
a Logic," recast and enlarged the article " Person " in the 
Appendix, I had a few copies struck off separate, for the 
use of such of my friends as possessed (which is probably 
your case) the earlier editions. The other articles re- 
lating to the same subject remain unaltered. I have, as 
you may suppose, little time for writing, but, if I had 
more, I could not presume to attempt a full explanation of 
so mysterious a subject. Part of what Scripture declares 
to us we shall, perhaps, be only able to comprehend when 
our faculties are enlarged in a better state. I agree with 
most divines in this, that they set out by admitting the 
nature of the Deity to be inscrutable ; what I differ from 
them in is, that most of them proceed in the- same breath 
to give a metaphysical explanation of it. I recommend 
you by all means to study Hinds' " Three Temples of the 
One God," ! and, I may add, all the works of the same 
author. 

1 ' Three Temples of the One True God contrasted,' 1830. 



62 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1831 

' My present appointment — a call to the helm of a crazy 

ship in a storm — is one which nothing but an overpower- 
ing sense of duty would ka x :e induced me to accept. Let 
me hope for your prayers, that I may be supported in my 
appalling task, and enabled to bring at least some frag- 
ment of the wreck into the haven. 

'Believe me. dear madam, yours very faithfully, 

' E. Whatelt. 3 

To The Lady Mary Shepherd. 



To the Bishop of Llandaff. 

'Sept 28, 1831. 

c My dear Lord. — You forget that when .Eneas was re- 
quested to give the details of his adventures, he had. for 
the present, got through them, and was placed comfort- 
ably on a sofa over a bowl of wine; whereas I am just 
launched on the stormy sea. and too intently thinking 
of each particular before me, to have leisure to look back. 
But I hope to have half an hour's comparative comfort 
soon, and to talk over matters with you by word of mouth. 

•I am designing to start for Dublin the beginning of 
next week, and hope to be back soon, to help in the ar- 
rangements for removing my family ; for we are despe- 
rately hurried to accomplish our departure tolerably early 
in the autumn. I could not think of moving a delicate 
wife and five young children in winter. 

e You have known me too long not to know how harass- 
ing it is to me to have to make up my mind on a hundred 
different points every day, instead of concentrating my 
mind on a single pursuit, which is to others the severest 
kind of labour. What is properly called business is the 
specific poison to my constitution, and I apprehend will 
completely wear me out in a very few years, especially 
from the want of long vacations to recruit. And what is 
most provoking is, that what is designed to be. and gene- 
rally is, the appropriate reward (the (juados), for the 
drudgery of persons in high office, viz. as Aristotle says, 
the rifxr) teal yspas — rank, state, pomp, precedence, &c. — is 



Mr. 44] VIEWS OF THE STATE OF IRELAND. 63 

to ine just so much additional plague. I would rather 
work with Paul at his trade of tent-making, or have to go 
out fishing with Peter. And a formal dinner-party, even 
at Oxford, is a bore which I would gladly commute for 
nine-and-thirty stripes. I do not know that I have less 
vanity than the generality of men, but mine is all of a 
personal kind (I do not mean in respect of bodily person), 
not connected with station. The offer of Archbishop was 
gratifying to my " organ of approbation " — the acceptance 
of the office is martyrdom. 

'The more I learn, from the most authentic sources, of 
the state of Ireland, and especially of the Church there, 
the, more appalling does the danger appear. It is too 
late, I fear, to think of unexceptionable expedients to meet 
the emergency. It is a great loss to cut away masts and 
throw the cargo overboard, but the ship is on the eve of 
foundering. Some decisive steps must be taken, and that 
very speedily, if the Irish Church, or indeed Ireland, is to 
be saved. And in such a case, whoever objects to my 
proposed expedient may fairly be called on to suggest a 
better. I see clearly the alarming precedent involved in 
Senior's suggestion, and have pointed it out to him. Can 
any way be thought of for paying the Eoman Catholic 
priests without, at least openly, drawing the funds from 
our own Church ? I am anxiously turning my thoughts 
towards the problem, though without a hope of devising 
any scheme altogether free from objections. Tithe-com- 
mutation, I am convinced, is one necessary step. In large 
districts of Ireland the Established Church is such as, by 
the help of a map, you might establish in Turkey or in 
China — viz. no place of worship, no congregation, no 
payment.' 

To Bishop Copleston. 

'Dublin: Thursday, Oct. 13, 1831. 

6 My dear Lord, — Many thanks for your advice, which, 
as far as I can at present judge, I do not think I am likely to 
depart from ; but I can decide nothing positively till after 
my return to Oxford, where probably a letter from Lord Gr. 



64 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1831 

is waiting for me, in answer to one I wrote to him con- 
taining nearly the substance of what I had written to you. 

' Hinds will, I trust, reach Oxford to-day, where he is 
wanted- His sermon last Sunday at the Bishop of Killaloe's 
consecration was much admired. My brother preaches for 
me next Sunday, as I hope. The business which is now 
overpowering me is, I fear, nothing to what I am to expect. 
And the worst of it is, that our work in Ireland is like the 
labour in the trenches before a besieged town ; it is all 
under a heavy fire. The Papists are goaded to madness 
by perpetual causes of irritation, and yet the Protestants 
are like the Jews in their last siege — tearing each other 
to pieces whenever the Eomans gave them a respite. 

' P.S. — When I am Archbishop, pray address me by 
whatever designation affords the most pleasing associations 
to your own mind; if tbey are connected with your old 
pupil, Whately, my dignity will not be at all shocked.' l 

In October 1831, accompanied by his brother, the Eev. 
Thomas Whately, and his friends, Dr. Hinds and Messrs. 
Hugh Acland and Sherlock Willis, he started for Dublin, 
where his consecration was to take place. 

6 It had been arranged, 5 writes his friend Dr. Hinds, 
'that he and Dr. Knox, who had been appointed to the 
Bishopric of Killaloe, should be consecrated together at 
the Castle Chapel. When the morning arrived, a little 
before the hour of service, Dr. Radcliffe discovered that 
he had not resigned Halesworth ; and informed him that, 
by being consecrated before he had vacated the English 
living, he would violate the law, and that the penalty 
would be the forfeiture both of the archbishopric and the 
living, and also (if I recollect rightly) the being rendered 
incapable of holding any other ecclesiastical preferment 
either in England or in Ireland. It was, of course, neces- 
sary to postpone his consecration.' 

This delay obliged Dr. Hinds to return to Oxford with- 
out waiting for his friends. The ceremony took place in 

1 It is characteristic that when writing to old and intimate friends he 
signed himself through life — * K. W.' 



JEt. 44] ATTACKED BY A BIRMINGHAM MOB. 65 

St. Patrick's Cathedral, and immediately afterwards the 
whole party returned to England. 

It may easily be supposed that he left the scene of so 
many years' labours and interests with feelings of pain. 
'The year 1831/ writes my mother, 'had been physically 
and politically disturbed throughout the whole of Europe. 
The cholera had just reached England, and gave an addi- 
tional feeling of uncertainty, in parting with our friends, 
whether we should meet again.' 

A journey to Ireland was a very different thing then to 
what it is in these days of express-trains and swift-sailing 
steamers. To a family party it was, necessarily, a slow 
and rather anxious undertaking ; and in this case it had 
nearly been a very eventful one, the Archbishop being 
twice preserved from imminent danger in the course of it. 

The travelling-party was a large one, Mr. Sherlock 
Willis and Dr. Hinds being included, the latter in the 
capacity of domestic chaplain. At Birmingham they had 
an alarming proof of the excited state of public feeling. 
The bishops, having generally voted against the Eeform 
Bill, were exceedingly unpopular ; and when the family 
stopped at an hotel, the carriage was surrounded by a 
dense mass of squalid and lowering faces, ready apparently 
for any violent act. Some of them began to rub off the 
mud which concealed the coat-of-arms on the carriage ; 
fortunately it was an old family one, with no episcopal 
insignia ; otherwise the Archbishop, who had always voted 
for Eeform, would in this instance have probably fallen a 
victim to anti-episcopal feelings; but the conviction of 
the mob, that a prelate must travel with the distinctive 
marks of his rank, saved him. 

Two- or three days later he had an escape of a different 
kind at Holyhead. On stopping for the night, he sallied 
forth, according to his custom, for a late stroll with Mr. 
Willis ; the pier was then in progress, and being ill-lighted, 
they came unawares on an open quarry. Mr. Willis, who 
was foremost, had just time to cry ' Stop ! ' while himself 
in the act of falling. He was taken up insensible and 
severely hurt, and ten days were spent at Holyhead before 



C6 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. - [1831-2 

the travelling party were able to complete their journey 
and land at Howth, in the end of November. 

The letter which follows, to Bishop Copleston, is suffi- 
ciently explained by this account : — 

'Dublin: Nov. 19, 1831. 

' My dear Lord, — You will, I dare say, be glad of a 
hasty line — though I have no time for more as yet — to 
say that we have arrived safe. Willis has a tedious wound 
in the face, but is in no danger, and is able to go about. 
My wife has borne all her trials, including severe sea- 
sickness, better than I could have hoped. I do think the 
wanton disregard of life shown by leaving open a deep 
pit, quite unfenced, close to the footway in a street, 
approaches near to murder. It was a dark night, and he 
a step or two before me, when I saw him suddenly vanish, 
and heard a heavy fall, followed by a groan, which I 
thought was probably his last. When drawn out, his first 
word, on recovering his senses, was to express his joy that 
it had not happened to me ! These are the occasions on 
which the true hero shows himself.' 

*In order thoroughly to understand and to appreciate 
the conduct of Whately in accepting the Archbishopric of 
Dublin, it is necessary to bear in mind the critical (and 
apparently most desperate) state of the Protestant Church 
of Ireland, referred to by Lord Grey in the letter already 
cited, which then prevailed. The first onslaught of the 
strong and compact Irish democracy, after it had obtained 
its great triumph of Catholic Emancipation, and aided in 
the triumph of Parliamentary Reform, was directed against 
that Church. Then commenced the organised resistance 
to the payment of tithes, which for a while seemed to 
imperil its very existence as an Establishment. And the 
Whig Government were deemed by the great body of its 
clergy little better than traitors, ready to abandon them 
to the common enemy as soon as they could do so without 
absolutely outraging public opinion. 

*It may serve as a convenient index to the contents of 



Mi. 45] THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 67 

much of his correspondence, during this and the following 
years, to give in this place a summary of the Parliamentary 
history of the great struggle which occupied them. 

*In November 1831 the Newtownbarry riots, and in the 
September following those at Wallstown, excited to the 
utmost the mutual exasperation of parties. Tithes almost 
ceased to be collected through a great part of Ireland. In 
1832 two Committees of the House of Lords sat on the 
subject, and a variety of schemes for reimbursing the Irish 
clergy the heavy losses which they had sustained, and for 
settling the question of Tithe itself, were agitated during 
that and the following years — to which frequent reference 
will be found in these pages. Dissatisfied with their pro- 
spect of Parliamentary redress, the friends of the Church in 
Ireland organised, in 1835, an association for the purpose 
of recovering tithes by exchequer process, which had con- 
siderable success, and a little daunted the assailants. 

*In this state of things, a measure was devised (1835) 
for the payment of arrears to the clergy by Government, 
reimbursable by a land-tax. But, on the attempt being 
made to place the whole matter on a permanent basis, a 
new and formidable question arose. 

*On the 30th March, 1835, Sir Robert Peel being then 
prime minister, Lord John Eussell proposed that the 
House of Commons should resolve itself into Committee 
for the purpose of considering the state of the Irish Church, 
with a view to applying any surplus left over from spiritual 
objects to the education of the people at large. The reso- 
lutions were carried, by a majority of 43, in a house of 
611 members, on April 3. A second division having 
reaffirmed the principle, Sir Robert Peel resigned. 

*Lord Melbourne having succeeded him, the ministerial 
measure respecting Irish Tithes, embodying the principle, 
was brought forward on June 21, and it passed the Com- 
mons by a small majority ; but the ' appropriation clauses ' 
were struck out in Committee of the Lords, and Ministers 
consequently abandoned the Bill. 

*In 1836 the Tithe measure again passed the Commons, 
and the appropriation clauses were again rejected by the 

F 2 



68 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832 

Lords. In 1837* the resumption of the question was pre- 
vented by the death of the King, and consequent dissolu- 
tion. In 1838, Lord John Eussell declared his intention 
of waiving perseverance in the irritating conflict between 
the two Houses which had continued so long, and em- 
bodying the principle contended for in some new measure* 
And therewith, after some more party divisions on inci- 
dental questions, the subject dropped; and a Bill, com- 
muting tithe for rent-charge in Ireland, was quietly passed, 
without those clauses which had caused the fall of one 
ministry, and seriously endangered another.* 

The circumstances in which Dr. Whately found himself 
on first arriving in Dublin were thus very trying. Over 
and above those arising from his being a stranger suddenly 
placed in a novel position, full of anxiety and responsibility 
under the most favourable circumstances, there were 
peculiar sources of trial and difficulty in his case. He had 
to meet the strongest prejudices in those brought into 
closest contact with him; and circumstances arose very 
soon, which brought him into painful collision with the 
greater number of those to whose support, under happier 
auspices, he might have looked, and whose opposition 
could not but be specially painful and distressing to him. 

He bore all without a word of complaint, but his nerves 
were so overwrought, and his pulse became so high, that 
serious apprehensions were entertained for his health. 
Other causes of a more gratifying nature, tended to keep 
up nervous excitement. He was a distinguished stranger, 
both personally and officially, and Irish hospitality was 
poured on him with all its genuine warmth and cordiality. 
He was entertained not only at the Viceregal Lodge, but 
by all who considered themselves entitled to invite him. 
To some dispositions this might have been a relaxation, 
but with him it was otherwise. He felt it as a demand 
on him that he should do his paxt in general conversation, 
at a time when he had no leisure, thought, nor feeling for 
it. At all times, though peculiarly fitted to shine in 
general society, he withdrew himself from it as much as 
he was able, preferring the society of his more intimate 



JEt. 45] HIS COUNTRY HOUSE AT EEDESDALE. 69 

friends, and principally that of his own clergy, with whom 
he could feel more at ease. 

With the Lord-Lieutenant, the late Marquis of Angle- 
sey, he was on terms of the most friendly cordiality ; but, 
except at regular dinners at the Castle or Lodge, their 
intercourse was chiefly official, for morning visits and 
evening parties were alike distasteful to him. 

But it was impossible to live in Dublin and not to be 
under a continued pressure ; and the result might have 
been very serious to his health, had he not engaged a 
country place (Eedesdale), about four miles from. Dublin, 
which was henceforth his chief abode, till within three 
years of his death. 

c That charming country residence,' writes one who was 
with him at the time, ' afforded just the kind of repose 
and relaxation which he required. There he could stroll 
about his garden, and, without the same oppression of 
spirit, think or talk over what required deliberation, while 
he was budding, pruning, turning up the earth with his 
spade, or making some novel experiment on tree or shrub. 
The easy distance from Dublin enabled him to be at the 
Palace for transacting business, between breakfast and 
dinner; and he always returned home with a holiday 
feeling, whatever work he might have to do there in 
thinking or writing. To the last, however, the receiving 
and giving of entertainments was a service of duty.' 

The chief part of the year was then passed by the whole 
family at Eedesdale. His habits were now pretty much 
as they continued through life. He rose between seven 
and eight, and employed himself while dressing in medi- 
tating the subjects of letters, sermons, or literary under- 
takings; he then spent an hour, ]ess or more, in his 
garden. He took delight in performing the ordinary 
garden operations with his own hands, sometimes working 
hard at digging, lopping boughs, or felling trees ; at other 
times engaged in the lighter occupations of budding and 
grafting, in which he displayed much skill and ingenuity. 

' His observation of nature,' writes a friend who knew 
him well, ( was most universal and accurate, and nothing 



70 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [183* 

rare or monstrous in the works of nature escaped him. 
His remarks on, and explanations of, any phenomena in 
natural history were most acute and ingenious. His 
botanical knowledge was considerable, and his acquaint- 
ance with practical gardening far superior to that of the 
generality of gardeners. He delighted in experiments on 
the culture of plants and trees ; in budding, grafting, in- 
arching, and other modes of propagating plants. His 
fondness for arboriculture indeed was a constant resource 
and agreeable relaxation; and his combinations of one 
species of plant with another on the same stem, by "ap- 
proach-grafting," made his grounds at Eedesdale a very 
chaos of whimsical curiosities. 

6 Xec longum tempus, et ingens 
Exiit ad ccelura raniis felicibus arbos, 
Miraturque noras frondes, et noil sua poma. 

Yibg-. Georg. ii. 80. 

c The grounds of the friends with whom he stayed bear 
marks, to this day, of his enchanter's hand and knife ; and 
his friends cherish these diversions of his multiform genius 
with careful remembrance, recalling his wise observations 
or ingenious conjectures, as he tried his experiments or 
perpetrated his varied outrages on nature. 

6 He was particularly fond of books of natural history 
and gardening, and was well versed in old Gerard's 
Herbal. He rarely forgot anything worth recalling in his 
varied reading. He had an Irish gardener at Eedesdale 
at one time who was clever and skilful, and as conceited 
as if he had climbed to the very summit of the tree of 
knowledge. One day, as he was relating some of his 
boasted achievements in gardening, his master asked him, 
ironically, whether he had ever raised plants by capillary 
attraction? To which the gardener, totally unconscious 
of the joke, replied unhesitatinglv, " Oh ! surely, my 
lord." ' 

His love of animals of all kinds was a striking feature 
in his character ; there was scarcely a living creature, 
whether high or low on the scale of animated nature, 
which he did not take a pleasure in taming and watching. 



.Et. 45] HIS FAVOURITE AMUSEMENTS AND BOOKS. 71 

He could not walk round his meadow without stopping to 
lure the cows to follow him to be fed with branches ; and 
even the habits of a frog or a snake would be watched 
with interest. To him these pursuits were never frivolous ; 
the smallest incident that could illustrate the wonderful 
adaptation of the habits of animals to their safety and 
welfare, was brought forward by him, and illustrated with 
the simple clearness of Paley in his ' Natural Theology.' 
' Do you know,' he would observe, ' why a dog never lies 
down till he has turned round and round three times ? It 
is manifestly an instinct given him in reference to his 
wild state, in which he would require to clear a space for 
his lair in the midst of grass or brushwood.' He break- 
fasted late and irregularly, but he liked to have his family 
and friends sitting with him to converse, and this was 
often the time when his thoughts would flow forth most 
freely to others ; sometimes throwing out in conversation 
the rough draught of some future work — sometimes giving 
a young person present a lecture on Logic, or Greek, or 
Mathematics, or Political Economj^. The range of sub- 
jects on which he took a lively interest was a very wide 
one. But those which concerned the condition of man- 
kind, whether mentally, socially, or politically viewed, 
were his favourites. Aristotle's Ethics was a textbook 
from which he loved to teach. 

Another standard favourite was Thucydides. There 
were passages from the History of the Plague at Athens, 
of the Corcyrsean Sedition, &c. which he would quote 
almost verbatim, and with the most animated and en- 
thusiastic delight. One passage relative to the character 
of the Athenians as a nation, to their dauntless courage 
and unflagging perseverance in war and conquest, is 
identified by all who were much in his society w'th his 
peculiar manner and voice. It always used to inspire 
him, he would say, with emulation, as being the very 
picture, mutatis mutandis, of a noble Christian public 
spirit. None who were often in his society were likely 
ever to forget the earnest enthusiasm with which he would 
repeat : — ' Whatever good appears to be within their power 



72 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832 

to attain by exertion, to leave it unattempted seems to 
them to be like losing their property (oUsicov arspsaOat) ; if 
they fail in any enterprise, they set up some fresh hope of 
some other compensating advantage, and take the requi- 
site steps to meet the present emergency. When success- 
ful, they of all men advance the furthest; when defeated, 
they fall back the least; they reckon it a holiday — a day 
of festival, recreation, and rest — to perform some service 
for their country : thus they proceed through their whole 
life, in toils and perils, so that one might rightly describe 
them as born to have no repose themselves nor to allow 
any to others,' &c. &c. ' Now they do it to obtain a cor- 
ruptible crown.' 

The middle of the day was devoted to business and 
literary labours, but when in the country, half-hours were 
snatched for rambles or gardening. Nor were these sea- 
sons of exemption from mental toil, for, as his friend has 
observed, it was his habit, while apparently absorbed in 
some experiment on shrub and tree, to meditate over the 
sermons or essays he had in hand ; and often he would 
remark, that almost every tree and bush in his shrubbery 
walks was associated in his mind with the subject of some 
one of his various works. 

In the early part of the evening, when with his family, 
he generally read to himself, and enjoyed listening at the 
same time to music. He knew little of the art, and cared 
little or nothing for the classical or scientific; but any 
marked and simple melody pleased him, and he had a 
remarkably accurate and retentive memory for favourite 
tunes — asking for them again and again, and even recol- 
lecting them when played to him in his last illness. He 
played well at chess and backgammon, and often found it 
a recreation after the business of the day : but reading 
was his most usual evening employment. He read with 
great rapidity, and had a remarkable power of seizing and 
retaining the cream of every book he took up, even those 
which he had seemed to ' skim through.' For tales and 
novels, except a few old favourites, he cared little ; his 
favourite light reading was in the way of travels, natural 



J£t. 45] HIS CHAKGE TO HIS CLERGY. 73 

history, arts and inventions, and books of stirring adven- 
ture—especially descriptions of savage life, and of charac- 
teristic manners and customs in various countries. He 
retired, however, at an early hour to his study, and was 
generally engaged in writing till late at night. The 
recreations we have mentioned, needful as they were to 
enable him to keep up his strength, were after all but 
short and interrupted ; the amount of labour on which he 
had to enter was immense and varied, yet no subject 
which came before him was dismissed without accurate 
and close consideration. 

The Archbishop's charge, delivered this year, exposed 
him to serious animadversions. The Asiatic Cholera was 
for the first time raging in Ireland, and the dismay and 
excitement were general. At such a time, he felt the im- 
portance of pointing out certain dangers and errors, to 
which men were tempted under so new and alarming a state 
of things. Especially he believed it his duty to protest 
against the prevalent tendency of declaring this affliction 
to be a national judgment, and not only this, but a judg- 
ment for the sins of the Ministry; which led men often 
rather to take cognisance of other men's sins than their 
own, and, instead of ' humbling themselves under the 
mighty hand of God,' to pass judgment rashly on those of 
whose political or other opinions they disapproved. 

In thus protesting against a tendency peculiarly likely 
to prevail at such times, it was impossible the Archbishop 
could escape running directly counter to a large number 
of those about him, whose views on this subject differed 
widely from his own. 

Xor was this all : the practical part of his charge dis- 
pleased some, as much as the theoretical part did others; 
and as the remarks he then made as to the duty of his 
clergy in times of pestilence have been grossly misrepre- 
sented, it is needful to allude to them here. He has been 
accused of discouraging the clergv from visiting: Cholera 
patients ; and this has been ascribed by some to undue 
terror of the disease, and by others to a desire to make 
'himself popular with his clergy ! To those who knew him, 



74 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832 

it is needless to observe that neither of these motives could 
have the smallest influence with him at any time, as he 
was incapable of harbouring them ; but the fact is, what 
he did say has been misrepresented. As long as a man 
was in a state to be benefited by pastoral exhortation — as 
long as his soul might really be stirred up to repent and 
turn to his Saviour — the Archbishop would at all times 
have been the last to discourage the visits of his clergy to 
the sick. What he did deprecate, was the well-meant but 
useless devotedness of those who went to pray and read with 
patients already delirious or insensible ; whose minds could 
not be aroused, or consoled, or instructed, and with whom, 
therefore, no rites administered could be of any avail, in 
the estimation of Protestant Christians, who consider that 
the benefit of prayers and sacraments must depend on the 
state of mind of the recipient. To administer the Lord's 
Supper to one so enfeebled and prostrated, by pain and 
disease, as to be unable spiritually to enter into the bless- 
ings of the ordinance, the Archbishop regarded as a pro- 
fanation of the rite. 1 

It can be easily seen, even thus far, that the Archbishop 
was now placed in circumstances of no ordinary difficulty 
and trial. As has been observed, he had to encounter 
prejudices of many kinds : first, as an Englishman and 
an Oxford scholar; then, again, as the appointment of a 
Whig Ministry — this being, in the eyes of many in Ireland 
at that time, sufficient to imply at once reckless Liberalism 
and encouragement of Popery. Then, again, rumours had 
reached them as to his religious opinions, of which very 
little was known in reality, and much conjectured which 
was sufficiently remote from the truth. 

He did not ' wear the regulation uniform,' or express 
himself as they had been accustomed to hear orthodox 
divines express themselves ; and therefore many hastily 
concluded he must be heterodox, though how and in what 
way they, perhaps, would hardly have been able to ex- 

1 ' I feel sure,' are his words, 'that no sense of personal danger will deter 
yon from doing your duty as Christ's ministers, on any occasion where you 
can be of real service to the souls of men.' 



2Et. 45] THE NATIONAL EDUCATION SYSTEM. 75 

plain. Vague rumours that he was a Papist, a Socinian, 
one who taught universal scepticism, &c. &c, were cir- 
culated and believed by many who had never heard him 
speak, or read a line of his works. 

But this was not all. An event occurred within the first 
year of his installation which tended, more than almost any 
other could, to increase this prevalent spirit of hostility 
against the new diocesan. This was the establishment of 
the celebrated system of National Education, introduced 
chiefly through the instrumentality of Mr. Stanley (now 
Earl of Derby), then Chief Secretary for Ireland. 1 The 
question was one of absorbing interest in the country ; and 
the feeling, when the outline of the plan was made known, 
was one of general dismay among a very large body both 
of the clergy and laity. It was then and afterwards affirmed 
that Dr. Whately had been sent to Ireland for the very 
purpose of carrying out the system. 

It is not the fit province of a work like this to give a 
detailed history of the operation of this system in Ireland. 
The full and complete history of the whole undertaking 
must be left to better-qualified pens and later times. Per- 
haps it is scarcely possible till more years have passed, 
and the freshness and vehemence of personal feeling have 
subsided, that the whole should be viewed, as every trans- 
action ought to be viewed, with the eye of an historian, 
and not of a partisan. 

That the Archbishop entered on the undertaking with 
the most earnest and single-minded desire of extending 
the blessings at least of civilisation and intellectual cul- 
ture, and, as far as he thought practicable, Scriptural 
knowledge likewise, as widely as possible among his 
adopted countrymen of all creeds, no one who knew him 

1 In Sept. 1831, the system established by the Kildare Street Society 
having fallen into disfavour as too exclusive, Mr. Stanley moved for and 
obtained the sum of 30,000/., to be applied for educational objects in Ireland, 
and a Board was created to superintend the distribution. Such was the com- 
mencement of the system in question, in the very month of Dr. Whately's 
appointment ; but the writer of this memoir can bring the Archbishop's 
own repeated declarations in testimony that he was never consulted about 
it till after his settlement in Ireland. 



76 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832 

could for a moment doubt. It was mainly through his 
instrumentality that a considerable portion of the Scrip- 
tures — a work of his own on the Evidences of Christianity, 
and a volume of Sacred Poetry — were introduced. For 
years he laboured diligently to carry out the system in its 
integrity ; and it was only when, as it appeared to him, 
the system had been infringed, and the public broken 
faith with, by the withdrawal of books deliberately sanc- 
tioned by the Directors, and to whose circulation they had 
pledged themselves, that he withdrew from a work he 
could no longer conscientiously carry on. 

How the system would have worked, and whether its 
success would have been greater as a mixed system, had 
the great body of Protestant clergy and laity in Ireland 
generally supported it, it would now be vain to enquire. 
That the results would have been different from those 
which have taken place can scarcely be doubted ; but what 
those results would have been is another question. Whether 
a mixed system of education (really and not nominally 
mixed, as has been the case in some instances) can ever 
work effectively in a country where differing religious 
systems are held with such intensity as in Ireland, is in 
itself a question not easily or quickly answered ; and what 
the effect would be on the religious life of either side, 
could it really and fairly be carried out, it might even be 
harder to decide. But these pages are not the place for 
such discussions, and probably they may be more fairly 
and clearly viewed many years hence. 

To all the array of prejudice against him, the Archbishop 
brought a resolute mind, an uncompromising love of truth 
and determination to carry out thoroughly all - he felt to 
be right, and manners which had more of the ease and 
freedom, and perhaps abruptness, of the Oriel Common- 
room than the cautious, stately, and measured courtesy 
generally expected in high dignitaries of the Church. The 
true elements of courtesy, in its highest sense — a delicate 
regard for the feelings of others, and a disinterested be- 
nevolence which has seldom been equalled — he did, indeed, 
possess. But the remains of the old shyness, added to the 



JEt. 45] ANTAGONISM OF THE IRISH CLERGY. 77 

somewhat didactic tone naturally acquired by a college 
tutor and lecturer, left a certain peculiarity of manner, 
which was often mistaken by those who knew him little. 

To those with whom he was now brought into contact 
it was wholly unintelligible, and they misjudged him 
accordingly. Many truly good men never through life 
fully understood the real character of him with whom 
they had to do. He -was unlike any they had been used 
to meet; and his profound reserve on the subjects on 
which he really thought most deeply (while open, even to 
transparency, on others) led them to form the hasty 
conclusion, that the sentiments which were not expressed 
as they had been accustomed to express them, did not 
exist. 

But if it were thus possible even for conscientious and 
pious men so utterly to misunderstand their diocesan, it 
may easily be believed that in their train followed many 
of a lower stamp — many to whom a single-minded and 
conscientious man was alike unintelligible and hateful — 
many who abused him, without knowing why, merely to 
please those whom they thought it their interest to con- 
ciliate ; and the popular journals of the day poured forth 
articles, in the most vehement and often scurrilous lan- 
guage, opposing all the measures, principles, and practices 
of their new diocesan in unmeasured terms of bitterness. 

He met all this opposition calmly and firmly. He never 
swerved a hair's breadth from the course he had laid down. 
But opposition was painful to his disposition. His earlier 
life, as we have remarked, had been spent among attached 
friends, and admiring and respectful pupils ; the contrast 
could not but be bitterly felt, even by a nature endowed 
with less deep and acute feelings than his. He passed 
through the fiery ordeal with all the natural courage of 
his character. 

* But he did not restrain himself, either in his speeches 
in Parliament or in his correspondence, from complaints 
which showed how severely this trial wrought on his 
sensitive nature. He might, no doubt, have been more 
reticent on this subject, and have shared with other public 



78 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832 

men the amount of obloquy and misrepresentation which 
forms the ordinary allowance of English public life. But 
he was by nature, undoubtedly, a little prone to indulge 
in feelings of mortification of this class ; and it must also 
be remembered that his case was peculiar. Most public 
men are connected with others by the strong ties of party. 
On men so linked together, the storm of contumelious 
assault bursts comparatively harmless. ' Defendit nume- 
rus, junctseque umbone phalanges.' To attack one is to 
attack all. Every one is certain, in his hour of need, not 
merely of generous but of interested and almost instinc- 
tive support from his political, clansmen. But Whately 
stood alone. By his firm and deliberate choice he had 
severed himself from all party connexions ; he lost, there- 
fore, all the advantage of party sympathy and support. 
Of course he was not abandoned, either in debate or in 
action ; he had a few attached friends, and he was also 
defended on necessary occasions by his immediate chiefs, 
of whom Lord Orey, according to his nature, was among 
the most generous. Still, generally speaking, he was left 
alone in the unpopularity which circumstances forced on 
him : and this must be borne in mind, if his complaints 
on the subject appear at times to indicate that he was not 
'tetragono ai colpi di ventura.'* 

In this year (1832) Archbishop Whately founded the 
Professorship of Political Economy which bears his name 
in the University of Dublin. This was an enterprise at- 
tended with considerable difficulty, owing to the general 
ignorance of the subject in the University. It was hard 
to prevent those to whom the science was new from 
imagining that it had something to do with party politics, 
which, in his own words, 'had about as much to do with 
political economy as they had with manufactures or agri- 
culture.' 

The establishment, however, of this Professorship, and 
the distinguished talents of the eminent men who have 
succeeded each other in the chair — of whom the first three 
were Isaac Butt, Esq., M. P. ; James A. Lawson, Esq., 
Solicitor-General: and the Eight Hon. Judo'e Lon^field 



JEt. 45] CONFIRMATION AND ORDINATION. 79 

— could not but produce a considerable effect in leading 
to a clearer comprehension of the aims and objects of the 
science. 

But while ever ready to turn his attention to questions 
like these, the Archbishop continued to labour in his 
diocese as he had laboured in his parish and college — 
reforming abuses of long standing, and carrying a spirit 
of diligent and unwearying activity into every department. 
The rite of Confirmation, which had not been administered 
for many years in the diocese, was revived ; he adopted 
the plan of holding confirmations alternately in different 
churches and districts regularly every other year, some- 
times oftener, requiring a very careful preparation for it. 
He made the ceremony a deeply impressive and touching 
one, not only by the solemn dignity and deep feeling with 
which he performed it, but by the custom, to which he 
ever adhered, of beginning and ending it by a short but 
impressive address to the young people, and following it 
up by the administration of the Lord's Supper. This 
he considered especially important, as affording the can- 
didates an opportunity of partaking of a privilege which 
might otherwise be long delayed or altogether neglected; 
and he strongly upheld the principle that confirmation 
should ever be regarded as a preparation for the Lord's 
Table, and that those who are unfit for the one are unfit 
for the other. The ordinations were likewise conducted 
in very different manner from what had been practised 
before. Instead of leaving the task of examination to his 
chaplain, he took this office into his own hands; but to 
avoid the painful alternative of himself dismissing a can- 
didate, or accepting one who might be unfit, he caused 
them all to pass through preliminary examinations con- 
ducted by his chaplains, sometimes frequently repeated ; 
the chaplains being charged to allow no one to come up to 
the Archbishop for the final examination unless he was 
certain to pass. 

His weekly levees were another distinguishing feature 
in his diocesan work. All who wished to see him on 
business attended these levees, and they were often made 



80 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELT. [1832 

an occasion for much instructive and interesting conversa- 
tion, when, with a circle of clergy around him, he would 
propose questions or discuss various subjects with charac- 
teristic liveliness and fertility of mind. 1 

The following incident occurred on one of the Arch- 
bishop's confirmation tours. "While on a visit at the house 
of one of his clergy, a large party was assembled to meet 
him. After dinner the conversation turned on the Apos- 
tolic decree, about •' abstinence from blood.' See. which 
some present were disposed to regard as binding on us. 
The Archbishop, according to a frequent custom of his, 
stated various questions and raised objections to each 
suggestion, in order to draw out his companions. One of 
the guests, a layman, seeing that all appeared a good deal 
puzzled, imagined that the Archbishop himself was at a 
loss 5 and that he avoided giving a decision from not know- 
ing precisely what to think. He accordingly called on the 
Archbishop for explanation, in a manner which seemed 
to imply some doubt whether he would be able to give it. 
The latter calmly replied that he had only wished to ascer- 
tain the views of the clergy present, but that, if they 
wished it. he had no objection to give his ovrn. He then 
proceeded to sketch out the system of St. Paul: that he 
would not allow any persons to change one way or the 
other, on becoming Christians, except by observing that 
pure morality which really does constitute part of the 
Christian character; in all externals. * let every man con- 
tinue in his vocation wherewith he is called.' So that he 
concluded the abstinence from blood and things strangled 
to be merely the continuance of it among the • devout ' 
G-entiles, who had already practised it. and to be imr- 
posed on none. This view, which the Archbishop has 
brought forward in several of his works, he sketched out 
in a continuous discourse of ten or fifteen minutes, and so 
clearly and intelligibly that there was an involuntary mur- 
mur of approbation through the company. The gentle- 

1 A luncheon was regularly provid levees, plain, but sul sfa : ' : - 1 

and plentiful ; and the attendance of servants was excluded, to ei 

who vrished. to partake of refreshment without scruple or shyness. 



2Et. 45] HIS MONTHLY DINNERS. 81 

man who had called for the explanation said nothing 
more. 

An anecdote of one of his early levees is thus recorded 
by one of his clergy : — 

•' Upon one occasion/ writes this gentleman, ' a prelate, 
since deceased, was present, whose views were not favour- 
able to the doctrine of Election. " My Lord,' 5 said he, 
addressing the Archbishop, "it appears to me that the 
young clergy of the present day are more anxious to teach 
the people high doctrine than to enforce those practical 
duties which are so much required." "I have no objec- 
tion," said his Grace, "to -high doctrine, if high practice 
be also insisted upon —otherwise it must of course be in- 
jurious." Then, addressing the young clergy who were 
present, he said, " My younger brethren, if at any time 
you find your preaching productive of good, and that your 
congregations value your exertions, beware of being puffed 
up and losing your balance ! Self-respect is valuable and 
useful, but as there will be a sufficient growth each day, 
cut it close every morning. And when through the good- 
ness of Grod you are successful in your ministry, enter into 
your closet, fall down on your knees before the throne, and 
o the Lamb ascribe all the praise, the honour, and the 
glory.'" 

The monthly dinners were another important feature in 
the Archbishop's work in his diocese. They were held 
regularly for the members of the Dublin ' Association for 
Discountenancing Vice.' The members, both clergy and 
laity (clergy, however, naturally predominating), were 
invited by turns to these dinners ; there was no constraint 
or formality, all conversed freely, and those who were 
present often recall with undying interest the brilliant and 
instructive conversation they enjoyed there. 

These meetings were peculiarly congenial to the Arch- 
bishop's disposition, and furnished him with the kind of 
society he most enjoyed. 

The following reminiscences from Bishop Hinds will 
furnish additional particulars of his early work in Dublin. 
Dr. Hinds writes: — < I accompanied him on his first Con- 

G 



4- 



82 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832 

formation tour. One of the stations was Athy, where he 
was hospitably entertained by Mr. Trench, and a g: 
number of the neighbouring clergy invited to meet him. 
Whilst waiting for dinner a conversation was going on. 
with him and around him, on a public controversy that 
had been held between some Eoman Catholics and some 
members of our communion, and on the manner in which 
the several questions at issue had been handled by the two 
parties. " Gentlemen," said the Archbishop, K suppose I 
take the Eoman Catholic side for a few minutes, and y a 
argue against me: I should like to hear h ;— you would 
proceed." Into the debate they all plunged, the Arch- 
bishop standing like one of Ariosto's knights, opposed to 
a throng who thrust right and left without being able to 
make a rent in his armour. Dinner put an end to the 
conflict, but so sensible were the clergy of having been left 
in an awkward position, that, when we returned to the 
drawing-room, a deputation presented themselves, to ex- 
press a hope that, as he had so powerfully advocated the 
Eoman Catholic cause, he would give them the benefit of 
pointing out what there was weak in his arguments, and 
how they ought to be met. This he did, with his ac- 
customed kindness and clearness. 

• He was careful on all occasions to disavow 7 his connec- 
tion with any political party : but this principle of entire 
independence was hardly understood, and in more instances 
than one. probably, he disappointed the expectations of 
those who supposed that they had some party claims on 
him. At the Lord-Lieutenant's, one day, the conversation 
turned on the censure the Government was incurring for 
what was represented as truckling to O'Connell. The 
Archbishop took no part in the discussion. At length 
Lord Plunket said to him — thinking, no doubt, to elicit 
from him a word or two of approval — ;i Archbishop, you 
do not tell us what you think: may not one make use : 
the services of another without being identified with him. 
or being responsible for all his opinions and conduc : " 
The Archbishop: SC I would make use of Satan himself if 
I could make any good use of him, but" added he with 



jEt. 45] HIS DISCOUKAGEMENT OF MENDICANCY. 83 

emphasis, and an emphatic look, " / would not pay him 
his price" 

6 In connection with what he did in Parliament and by 
his writings for improving the Poor Laws, may be men- 
tioned his uniform protest against the practice of giving 
alms in the street. During his residence in Oxford he 
was an active member of a society established there for 
the Suppression of Mendicity, &c, and took his turn regu- 
lary at the office in Carfax, when the indigent travellers 
were brought up from the lodging-houses to receive their 
morning meal and a small sum of money, and to be put 
on their route out of the town. On these occasions he 
took infinite pains to ascertain, as far as possible, who 
were mere vagrants, and who not. Some amusing inci- 
dents occurred. It had been found expedient to require 
that they should present themselves with clean faces, and 
the men shaved. A long beard being a useful appendage 
for disguise, and for making up a professional beggar, 
against the latter part of this regulation many strenuous 
appeals were made. Whately was most obdurate ; break- 
fast or beard was the hard alternative, not a few choos- 
ing to hold to the latter. Another requirement was that 
they should show the contents of their pockets. One, on 
being called to do so, drew out a MS., and politely pre- 
sented it for inspection. It turned out to be a poem, the 
man's own composition — subject, The Treadmill. 

' In Dublin, he had to deal with a new phase of mendi- 
cancy. The mendicant in Ireland, covered as he is with 
shreds of clothing for which there is no vocabulary — a 
spectacle of poverty in its lowest and saddest form — is, 
nevertheless, not the mere beggar as in England, but has 
at command a fund of wit and pleasantry to serve his turn, 
where his moving tale and miserable appearance fail him. 
Here again the Archbishop, whilst he took a warm interest 
in the Dublin Mendicity Association, set his face as firmly 
as ever against street alms. Soon after his arrival we 
were walking* on the Donnybrook Road, when a sturdy 
fellow followed him persistently, and would take no denial. 
He whined and beclamoured, was pathetic, was humorous, 

g2 



84 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832 

but all to no purpose. At length, as if he had given up 
the attempt to get anything, he dropped a little behind, 
and said in an undertone, taking care however that it 
should be audible, " What a handsome pair of legs he has ! " 
On went the Archbishop ; the man gave him up as im- 
practicable. 

' He used to boast that he had never in his life given 
to a beggar in the street or highway — a boast that was 
the more allowable, as it is well known that his purse 
was ever open for relieving distress, and that " to do good 
and to distribute" was one prominent trait in his cha- 
racter. 5 

The next letters we shall give are highly characteristic. 
They are addressed to a former parishioner, with whom he 
maintained through life a correspondence which was valued 
and enjoyed by both parties. He was at this time anxious 
to induce this friend to employ her talents in writing 
for the young ; and this forms the chief part of the two 
letters before us, which we have placed together for this 
reason : — 

< Dublin: June 29, 1832. 

'My dear Miss Crabtree, — I send you two sketches, 
which I have not time to fill up, and one or both of which 
may set you agoing. There is difference enough between 
them to give scope to different turns of mind. Write just 
as your own taste prompts, departing as far from the sketch 
as you please, for you will never write well if shackled. I 
am inclined to think you may make a good writer for 
children and the lower orders — the most important and 
not the easiest department. You may learn " enough of 
medicine to cure a little child," but remember " you must 
spoil before you spin." You must have the patience to 
write and not please yourself, and try again and again 
without being disheartened, or you must not calculate on 
ultimate success ; at least I know what pains it cost me. 
But never think of writing well while you are about it : 
write rapidly after having thought maturely, and then lay 
it by for a day or two, and try to improve it. You have 



j£x. 45] LETTERS TO MISS CRABTREE. 85 

no idea of the patient modesty with which I have always 
laboured to profit by the criticisms of friends and enemies, 
without being discouraged. Perhaps you despise allegory. 
So do I. It is not for philosophers, but there is nothing 
like it for the vulgar and children. Thank you for a 
most interesting letter. 

' Send me your first attempt soon.' 

'Dublin: Sept. 20, 1832. 

c My dear Miss Crabtree, — You may have thought I had 
forgotten you, but I have seldom a day or an hour to 
spare. It will do you much more service to correct and 
recast your own compositon than to have it done for you ; 
and as you have learnt to draw, you will, I trust, feel no 
mortification or disappointment or impatience at rubbing 
out and retouching, again and again, every stroke till it is 
quite right. No one will ever learn to draw or to com- 
pose well who will not submit to this drudgery. But in 
composition there are many who are ashamed to own the 
pains they have in fact taken, because they wish to be 
thought to owe everything to native genius. There may 
be such geniuses, but I at least am not one. I shall make 
some use, I cannot yet say what, of the " Settlement ; " 
the other I send back for the reason above given, with 
some remarks to guide you in recasting it. The species 
of composition, though when well done it seems very easy, 
is one of the most difficult, but I think you will succeed 
in it if you will take pains. The usual source of failure 
in everything of an allegorical nature, is not keeping up 
the allegory, but letting a Snug the Joiner " peep through 
the lion's neck and tell the company he is not really a lion. 
You may find numberless instances in that most popular 
allegory, the "Pilgrim's Progress," in which the travellers 
talk about sin and a Christian life while they are marching 
along the road and bear burdens on their backs; the 
author forgetting that the sin had already been represented 
by the burden, and the Christian life by the road. The 
difficulty of steadily holding on the mask, is what no one 
hardly could believe who has not tried. And, after all, 



56 LIFE OF AECHEISHOP TTHATELY, [1532 

what a *•' mean " employment of the intellectual powers. 

and children — that is. for three-fourths of mankind, and 
for half the remainder I I continue as well as I can ex- 

through. I expect to te in London the ensuing winter, to 
•'•fight with wild beasts " in Parliament. All the storms 
I have hitherto encountered are nothing to what I expect 

Chuich to he at hand, and that my Master calls me to 
tread the raging waves.' 

To A. Senior. Esq. — On Secondary Pu'n'iskmtnis. 

'D-cIir: July 2. 

•I wish you would get me the reports of the Tithe 
Committer. I have none of them. 

•I should like Chadwiek to turn on his mind this 
addition to his suggestions: At Alb an Hall, where I was 
at a loss for secondary punishments. I used to enter a 
delinquent's name in a black book, where- he stood as a 
kind of rftbtor. to be punished onlv if he appeared a 



sec :-na 



AH 



out of sight, be the punisbmentin some cases ? The men 

; Pray suggest, in your report on paupers, that any 
female receiving relief should have her hair cut off: it 
may seem trifling, but 1\& nug<T. Arc. 1st. A good head 
of hair will fetch from 5s. to 10-s.. which would be perhaps 

belief. One of our maids is ill of a fever, and we have 

almost been driven to force to make her part with her 
hair, though her life is in danger. I am certain she w ; id 1 
have cheerfully worked and fared hard for any length of 
time to save it.' 

^The opinions ana the exertions of Archbishop Whatew. 



JEt. 45] LETTER ON SECONDARY PUNISHMENTS. 87 

in the matter of Secondary Punishments, form a distinct 
and important chapter in his life, and shall therefore re- 
ceive a compendious notice at the outset. The subject 
has for the present lost its popular interest ; but it is one 
which in the ordinary course of events the exigencies of 
society are pretty sure, at some future time, to bring to 
the surface again. When the Archbishop's attention was 
drawn to the topic, transportation to Xew South Wales for 
various terms, from ' life ' down to ' seven years/ was the 
ordinary secondary punishment for all serious offences 
below capital. On their arrival in the colony, the criminals 
were either employed on public works, or (and in the 
majority of cases) 'assigned' as labourers to free settlers, 
and engaged chiefly in pastoral occupation. Much com- 
plaint reached the mother-country, which chiefly bore on 
the inequality of this kind of punishment. It was alleged 
that it pressed with very different severity on different 
classes : while many led very easv lives, and became 
prosperous and rich, others were subject to severe and 
oppressive discipline; others, again, wasted life in mere 
discontented idleness. Many schemes were suggested for 
the improvement of the system. Whately's clear and dis- 
secting logic stopped short of nothing but its total abolition. 
He thought it, of all punishments, the least deterrent 
to the offender here — the least reforming to the person 
undergoing it. He thought it also calculated to produce 
enormous evil, by peopling with a criminal race a new 
and attractive region of the world. He considered that 
under this system, Government at home, and its agents 
abroad, had to accomplish what he denominated two in- 
consistent objects — the prosperity of the colony, and the 
suitable punishment of the convicts. His opinions can 
be studied in his publications on the subject, and in his 
evidence before the Transportation Committee of 1838, 
which was appointed mainly in consequence of the public 
feeling produced by his appeals. They are everywhere 
urged vigorously, and with that single-hearted honesty 
which was the mainspring of his power. But — as his 
nature was — he looked but little at other sides of the 



S8 LIFZ OF AECHBISHOP vOEnTULY. "15^2 

juestion: his works may be bolted for plentyof evi- 
aa argument maim : :: an spoi action, butwiU afford 
little assistance tc those who are endeavouring to devise 
sat statutes foi it. i to solve the great general problem of 
secondary punishments. At the same time it may be 
observed mat VT — -; T in the -Lmdva E:-:t-; 1S29 • 
was the zrst to suggest that notion of sentencing jomriots 
- 1; certain amount of labour, instead >f time/ which 
aftermards taken v.o dy the prison noion: Macon-: ime. 
and — hi:h is considered op some tc- farm 'he basis :: mo 
much-admired spstem :: discipline of Irish prisons ari 1 : 
Sir Walter Crofton. 

*The immediate result of the efforts :: himself end those 
wh se energies he directed was, however, only a reform in 
the system. Assignment m .-.■ partially ad hisit-d— other 
devices in the way of employment and at substi- 

tuted. Theill-surcess :.fthese. and the no" :: free emigra- 
tion into Australia produced a general dissatisfaction in 
the colonies with transportation under any shape. From 
1851 to 1854 the question was much and acrimonious"." 
debated between them and them tther-ctuntry. The god d 
discoveries then omtriduted t: rer ler its cutinuance im- 
j issible. It lasted a lev pears t: Western Australia :my. 
and is urn ad iisieai 

To Sir T. Denman A iwy General).— On 

i:e;ada:e. PirnUhm-nU. 

'Dublin: Oct. 9, 1832. 

'Sir. — I her you to be assured that I am much zatte: 
at indina that my late public-aim : has attracted s-: much 
of the notice tf so many emiuem perstus. in it; line - " vat- 
self. It is ale a mwihina to in a that in st im- 
portant points we are tuliy tr very uearay agreed, r^u in 
s :>me where you seem t :■ supp :-se ttierwise : m; . . :t " : - u v~m 
my design to advocate an equality f punishment for all 
offenders, or a difference depending siiy tnthe differ 

1 ■ 0- Secc-iarvPu^ishnr-r.' 15S2 



JEt. 45] LETTER ON SECONDARY PUNISHMENTS. 89 

of prevention ; I always meant the importance of prevent- 
ing each offence to be taken into account. If we were to 
prevent robbing of orchards by roasting alive every one 
convicted of it, we should purchase the preservation of 
fruit too dearly. In the two cases you suppose, of a 
starving man stealing a loaf, and a profligate reducing a 
worthy man to beggary, there is as much difference in the 
public evil of the two offences as in the moral turpitude 
of the offenders. 

4 When I spoke, however, of the theory of punishment 
as being for prevention and not for retribution, I was not 
unaware that a certain degree of conformity to existing 
prejudices (which operate like the friction, resistance of 
the air, &c., in mechanics) must be admitted, in order to 
obtain the necessary sanction of public opinion. We 
must, like Solon, give men not the best laws, but the best 
they can be brought to receive. Still we should, as far as 
the case will admit, strive gradually to wean men from 
hurtful prejudices ; and I know of few more hurtful, in a 
moral point of view, than that which tends towards the 
apportionment of punishment to the moral guilt of the 
offender, for it leads of course to the converse error of 
estimating the moral guilt by the punishment ; and thus 
a most false and mischievous standard of morality is set 
up, inasmuch as there are so many important duties which 
human law cannot enforce, so many odious offences which 
it cannot at all, or more than very inadequately, punish — 
such as ingratitude, meanness, selfishness, seduction of 
youth into vice, &c. 

' I am convinced that to the error in question may be 
traced almost the whole of religious persecution. No one 
who believes in his religion can well avoid regarding it as 
a moral offence to reject, or at least to impugn or to cor- 
rupt it. But as men advance in intelligence they become 
by degrees more and more capable of approaching to a 
right view of this subject. Even the progress of language 
shows this. The ancients did not speak of inflicting 
punishment and suffering punishment, but of taking 
vengeance, paying a penalty, &c. ; it was dare pcenas — 



90 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832 

luere — solvere — and ulcisci, as a deponent (i.e. middle 
verb) to take, for oneself, satisfaction: and the deponent 
puni/'i was softened down afterwards into the transitive 
punire : so hovvai Slkt/v — Ti/xoDpixv rrapaayfiv. A mere 
savage thinks only of the past. As men advance towards 
civilisation, they think more and more of the future. Le. 
of preventing future transgressions. 

; Your remarks on Transportation are as ingenious as I 
should have expected them to be; and though it would 
have been of course more gratifying to me to have found 
you altogether of my opinion, it is some satisfaction to feel 
that the objections to my views which I have before me 
are likely to be — considered both as to themselves, and in 
respect to their author — the strongest, and probably the 
whole, of what can be urged on that side. For. though I 
do not deny that many of them have weight (and. indeed, 
there can hardly be a system so bad that nothing can be 
said for it. or so good that nothing can be said against it ). 
yet all of them together seem to me much more than 
overbalanced by those of either of the articles printed in 
the Appendix. Some of these you seem to me to have 
overlooked: e.g. what you say as to the dislike of trans- 
portation felt by many offenders is a topic discussed in 
p. 69. and in other parts of the same article: the topic of 
'•'getting rid" of criminals, in p. 84. and again in p. 140 : 
that of the overcharged expectations of comfort and pro- 
sperity in Xew South Wales, in pp. 76, 136. Oce. : and the 
total incompatibility of the several objects, to combine 
which is the problem proposed to a Governor of Xew 
South Wales, is touched on. though not so strongly as it 
might and should have been, in pp. 88-94. To govern in 
the best manner with a view to the convicts, so as to make 
the penalty of transportation answer the end proposed 
(which is the most important point), and to govern in the 
best manner, with a view to the prosperity of the colony 
(which is the point a Governor is naturally the most likely 
to aim at), are two objects each, separately, difficult of 
attainment, but altogether inconsistent and opposed to 
each other. 



Mt. 45] LETTER OX SECONDARY PUNISHMENTS. 91 

' There are some of your remarks in which I fully coin- 
cide, but which tend, I must confess, to strengthen my 
previous impressions. E.g. y I have no doubt that many 
(though I believe a smaller proportion than some suppose) 
are driven to commit crimes by distress ; and that when 
this distress can be traced, as it often may, to injudicious 
legislation — to poor-laws, corn-laws, or the like — the nation 
is bound, not only to provide for the amendment of the 
bad laws, but for the relief of the distress resulting from 
them. But I would not have a man left to commit a 
crime to entitle him to this relief. It would be not only 
kinder and more just, but, I am convinced, cheaper also, 
to provide for the emigration of five or six poor men 
before they had been driven by distress to crime, than to 
transport one of them as a criminal. In the latter case 
you must take into account, besides his transport and 
outfit, all the loss and inconvenience to society from his 
depredation before detection, and from the depredations 
of the rest who finally escape detection, the trouble and 
expense of his capture and trial, and, lastly, the circum- 
stance that he is probably altogether spoiled for an in- 
dustrious settler. 

' I agree with you again in believing that some persons 
of tolerably decent character, but not proof against temp- 
tation where no risk is incurred, may be deterred by the 
dread of mixing with a herd of abandoned reprobates 
during the middle-passage. Doubtless those of them who 
do suffer this undergo great misery, so great that I should 
say it would be an allowable mercy to hang them instead 
— nay, to let them die on the rack. No physical death 
can be so bad as the moral death which is likely to ensue. 
In proportion as the corruption of their moral character 
increases, their suffering from the contamination dimi- 
nishes. The punishment is one which causes more mischief 
than it does pain, and which is the more severe to each in 
proportion as he is less of such a character as to be de- 
serving of it — i.e. incapable of restraint but from fear. 
Now these two are among the things most to be avoided 
in punishment. Still sundry persons may be in this way 



92 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1832-3 

deterred, and this is a good as far as it goes, but the 
remedy seems to me far worse than the disease; for the 
proposed advantage rests on the supposition that the great 
majority of the convicts are profligates, to whom bad 
company is little or no penance, and who fester in their 
own corruption for four months, till by mutual contami- 
nation they shall have got rid of any remnants any of 
them may have of morality or decency. 

'When Shakespeare makes some one remark to Parolles, 
a If you could find a country where but women were who 
have undergone so much shame, you might begin an im- 
pudent nation" he little thought, probably, that the 
experiment of beginning such a nation would be seriously 
tried, and from not having quite enough of shameless 
women we should be sending out cargoes of girls to supply 
the deficiency. I shall beg your acceptance of a sermon 
in which I have treated of the moral mischief resulting 
from setting up the law of the land as a standard.' 



JEt. 46] ME. BLAXCO WHITE. 93 



CHAPTER IV. 

1833—1835. 

Rev. J. Blanco White resides with the Archbishop, and is appointed tutor 
to the Archbishop's family — Letter to Mr. Badeley on the Clerical 
Society — Letter to the Howard Society on the penalty of Death — Takes his 
seat in Parliament — Speeches on Irish Education and Irish Emancipa- 
tion — Retirement of Dr. Hinds, and appointment of Dr. Dickinson as 
his successor — Associated with Archbishop Murray in Commission of 
Enquiry on Irish Poor — Establishment of a Divinity College — Letters to 
and from Dr. Newman respecting their differences of opinion on Church 
matters — Mr. Blanco White, embracing Socinian views, retires from the 
Archbishop's family — Grief on this account manifested by the Arch- 
bishop, who subsequently pensions Mr. White — Letters to Rev. J. Blanco 
White on his Unitarian views, and consequent secession from the Church. 

The year 1833 opened on the same course of indefatigable 
labour as the former one had done. The Archbishop's 
home circle had been increased within the last year by 
the arrival of the Kev. J. Blanco White, who came from 
Oxford to superintend the education of the sons of his 
friends, the Archbishop and Mr. Senior, under the roof of 
the former. Mr. Blanco White was a Spaniard by birth, 
an exile from his country on account of his abandonment 
of Eomish principles. He first visited Oxford about 1817. 
An honorary degree was awarded him, for the services 
which he was considered to have rendered in the contro- 
versy with Eome ; and he came to reside at Oriel in 1826, 
when his close intimacy with the Archbishop began. Each 
of the two was a hearty admirer of the other. Blanco 
White had been chiefly occupied with literary pursuits 
while in England, his health not admitting of his offici- 
ating in the Church. It may be well here to observe, that 
the little work called ' Second Travels of an Irish Gentle- 



94 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1833 

man,' written as a kind of answer to Moore's book with a 
similar title, was the production of his pen about this 
time, and was written with the sanction and under the 
superintendence of the Archbishop. This work, unpre- 
tending as it is, contains valuable matter for those in- 
terested in Protestant controversy, and deserves to be 
better known. 

The following letter to Mr. Badeley was probably 
written in this year, and is worth inserting from its valu- 
able suggestions on the formation of clerical Societies : — 

To the Rev. J. Badeley. 

6 1 have just time to suggest two most essential rules 
for your Clerical Society, without which it will be all that 
you fear, and worse — a theatre for the display of polemic 
oratory and spiritual mob-oppression. 

6 1st. No one to stand up to speak. 

c 2nd. No decision to be made of any disputed point ; 
but each to state his opinions, and go home and retain 
them or change them as he likes best ; but no voting, no 
resolutions, &c. 

4 1 speak from experience.' 

To the Secretary of the Hoivard Society for Removing 
the Penalty of Death. 

'Feb. 15, 1833. 

' Sir, — I am most desirous? to remove not only the 
penalty of death, but any penalty for which a sufficient 
substitute can be devised. Nor would I limit this to the 
case of offences where personal violence is absent. No 
offence should be visited by a more severe penalty than 
is necessary for its prevention. Nor does the absence or 
presence of personal violence seem to me sufficiently to 
draw the line between offences which it is the less or the 
more difficult and important to prevent. An incendiary, 
for instance, who should burn down fifty stacks of corn, or 
a burglar who should enter the houses of fifty industrious 
families in their absence, and strip them of their all, could 



JEt. 46] TAKES HIS SEAT IN PARLIAMENT. 95 

not, in any point of view, be compared to advantage with 
one who should beat or even kill another in a quarrel. 

' The only effectual mode, as it seems to me, in which 
the Howard Society can promote their benevolent objects, 
is by setting themselves to devise such effectual secondary 
punishments as shall do away with the necessity of severe 
enactments. Any reasonable suggestion of this kind I 
shall be most ready to advocate ; but %vithout this all 
petitions, against this or that mode of punishment will be 
utterly vain, as they will be met by the ready answer, 
K What is to be done ? " and recommendations u to mercy," 
in general terms, will only elicit the remark, that to leave 
crime unrepressed, is mercy to the wicked only, and 
cruelty to the unoffending. No legislative measure has as 
yet occurred to me for the " relief of the poor and desti- 
tute of Dublin and its vicinity ; " but I shall gladly lend 
my support to any that may be devised which shall tend 
to increase, or at least not to diminish, the source from 
which, after all, must flow the greatest part of the comfort, 
the respectability, and the mitigation of calamity among 
the poor — viz. habits of steady industry, frugality, a spirit 
of independence, prudent forethought, and mutual kind- 
ness towards each other. Any measure which goes to 
destroy, repress, or prevent these, creates ten times more 
distress than it relieves. i\nd such, as I know from ex- 
perience, has been the effect of every legislative enactment 
that has hitherto been tried.' 

In this year (1833) the Archbishop took his seat in 
Parliament for the first time. His friends in England 
naturally rejoiced to see his powerful mind brought to 
bear on English questions. But every year of his attend- 
ance in Parliament increased his conviction that little 
good could be done unless the attendance were constant ; 
and that the periodical alternate sessions, though not suffi- 
cient for real usefulness in England, were quite enough to 
hinder his work in his own diocese ; and his steady and 
determined resolution to keep aloof from all party, could 
not conduce to popularity or to parliamentary influence. 



96 LIFE OF AKCRBISHOP WHATELY. [1833 

He usually avoided the ordinary work of the House, only 
speaking when the subject involved questions concerning 
Ireland or the United Church generally. 

*It was on March 19 in this year that he for the first 
time addressed the House of Lords, the subject being the 
Irish Education question. One part of his speech is me- 
morable, as a manifesto of his own deliberate view of the 
part which he meant to take, and to which he adhered, 
with unswerving firmness, throughout his public life. * It 
was of little consequence, 5 he said, 'whether such a person 
as himself was attached to any party or not ; but if he 
was worth mentioning at all, he was worth mentioning 
with truth. He did not mean to impute wilful falsehood 
to those who made these accusations against him. Per- 
haps they judged from their own experiences; perhaps 
they had never known, or seen, or heard of a person who 
was not attached to some party. All who knew him, knew 
that it had ever been a rule with him never to attach 
himself to any party, ecclesiastical or political. He was 
an independent man, and was entitled to be considered 
as an independent man.' 

*One other of his few speeches of this session is worth 
noting, on account of the light which is thrown on some 
of his peculiar views. It was on the project of Jewish 
emancipation (August 1, 1833). It is unnecessary to say 
that Whately, ever thoroughly consistent in his opposition 
to political disabilities on account of religious opinion, 
supported this measure unreservedly. But, in doing so, 
he gave vent to his favourite opinions on the subject of 
the emancipation also of the Church itself, and of reli- 
gion in general, from State control. Not only Jews, he 
thought, but Dissenters, should be restrained from legis- 
lating on Church questions. ' Everything relating to the 
spiritual concerns of the Church should be entrusted to a 
commission, or to some body of men, members of that 
Church, having power to regulate those concerns in such 
a manner as may be most conducive to the interests of 
religion, and to the spiritual welfare of the people.'* 

In this year the Archbishop had the trial of losing the 



JEt. 46] HIS ESTIMATE OF DICKINSON S CHARACTER. 97 

services of his valued friend and Domestic Chaplain, Dr. 
Hinds, who was compelled, from ill-health, to resign his 
office and return to England. His place was supplied by- 
one who now became the Archbishop's most efficient co- 
adjutor, and his valued and trusted friend — the late Dr. 
Dickinson, afterwards (in 1840) Bishop of Meath. From 
this time to his death, in 1842, he was truly the right hand 
of the Archbishop ; and among his letters and papers are 
frequent testimonies to the affection and confidence with 
which he regarded this friend. 

The beginning of their acquaintance, the year after the 
Archbishop's arrival in Dublin, had been characteristic. 
Dr. Dickinson, who was then chaplain of the 'Female 
Orphan House,' an institution still existing, had been 
consulted as to a curtailment of the expenses of the 
establishment, and suggested a diminution of his own 
salary as chaplain. This was repeated to the Archbishop, 
who was struck with the trait ; but it was somewhat later 
when he found the Chaplain examining his young pupils, 
and was so much pleased with his manner of drawing out 
their minds, as to enter into conversation with him and 
seek his further acquaintance. 

His appointment as Domestic Chaplain soon followed, 
and his services were most valuable ; his qualifications 
being precisely such as were most needed in such a 
capacity. 

6 His despatch of business,' writes the Archbishop, in a 
notice of his friend which he drew up after his death, 
e was wonderful. He was never in a bustle : he would 
seem to a bystander to be "taking things easy," and, as 
it were, lounging through what he had to do ; but few 
could do in two days as much business — some of it delicate 
and difficult business — as he could get through, and do 
admirably well, in one 

' Though generally liked as an amiable, 

and esteemed as a witty and intelligent man, he was re- 
markably destitute of dazzling qualities; and therefore 
his highest excellences, intellectual as well as moral, were, 
in a great measure, lost (as far as admiration goes) on all 

H 



98 LI7E in AECZEISZar "kk.TI-.LT. [:s:?3 

except tktse Trim hai statethma tanaemlal tkerett. He 
-vas -a::. a:r I think ever — aali mam aa, ; : "a. ;; 
; a..aa lat he a:.:". meat aersaasme p:~ers. am: ara:- 
tisei mat trttest aaaia mm mmt saa^ — kitk is 
a;: "aarari :: a; r^raia, Z a infer! :r kinis :■: 
aa. although they lid not much admire him 3 were aa- 

; mamam much influenced by him 

' a : am ~m ra: less likely to he a.:aL 

" sttrprise. ::*:■: :e fright enei: ami if 7~a' an maasim 
•ill : aaar ia maiok i: ~ms nemssary to aeciie :a tke star 
: tke a:aaa.i: :me ever kai .aarraa'aT- ia iama 
ra :>r had. as the phrase is, his wits more at at him. Yet 
he never despised :aa:a ielikeratitn. oral re-ielilera- 
tiom mten he a:. a aa :aaa:a:^ f;r a. He mas a:: like 
those generals, "'_:. —hen ..a ao tmrtmaity i.rers :;: a 
saiirn ;.:aa:a.a:e: attack, ;r ":.t1 ;. saaien mama :r 
other emlatim is remalsite t:r aettiac; at: ;: a iimotilam 
waste the time in deliberation which should be bestowed 
:a o:ti:n. ami malt, raakiac; preparations till tie time is 
past, or are at a loss which way t: turn on some sudden 
emergency. Nor. again. mas he like ;ae :: those — h : . 
"ma left ttmmolestei for any length ;: time. mil a:: 
tkiak :: availing tkemsekms :f tke maaatam/r iy itapr;-- 
a: a at o sitiaa. ::lle jtina reinforcements, aa I: mm 
left kim leistir-r.. ke almaa tkrevr an keli-mras. ani iii 

all to make his position nnassaiktlle 

• He was in all a lints remarkably good ia instruction, in 

mmmymg maat he ~ikri in a simple :.a;i clear t; 

the minis :f ; tiers. Ani the aai:a ;f his lit oat: t :~er 
mith sa:k eitmataka ry mktkness a mamkensmn as ke 
vjossessei. ::nst.ituted .. very rare nken:men:n. For. 
usually, those remarkably juick in 1 earning are ill-quali- 
fied for teachers, a least ;: tlmse "la are at etaally 
at : "a ; and those vrho are rather si : w than not are usually 
the best tea met a because they are not tempted to hurry 
their learners et the ground, but are accustomed t view 
all the steps iistinctly tkat ate a: le taken, aaa alst all 
tie iiaicnlties in tke rata. 

'lata a . however a one of tke lew exceptions to 



Mr. 46] COMMISSION OF ENQUIRY OX IRISH POOE. 99 

this rule. . . . The sort of conversational eloquence 
he possessed was peculiarly suited to his situation under 
me, in which it was often in his power to say, with great 
advantage, what could not have been properly said by me. 
E.g., the cases are numerous in which one is at a loss to 
decide whether such and such an attack, rumour, &c, 
should be repelled, or let alone ; when, if unanswered, it 
may do considerable mischief, and if noticed by myself, it 
may thereby gain importance. In these cases his services 
were invaluable.' 

In September of this year the Archbishop was asso- 
ciated with Dr. Murray, the Eoman Catholic Archbishop 
and eight lay-commissioners, in a Commission of Enquiry 
into the condition of the poor in Ireland, with a view to 
recommend measures for a system of relief. The Com- 
mission made its Report in 1836, but its principal re- 
commendations were not adopted by the Government; 
which, on the contrary, introduced and carried, in 1838, 
a measure of exclusive workhouse relief, contrary to the 
opinion of the Commission. 

The Archbishop laboured assiduously and anxiously, 
for about two years, to accomplish the objects for which 
the Poor Enquiry Commission was ostensibly appointed, 
and to prevent the ruinous measure (in his estimation) 
which the Ministry were bent on carrying. All these 
labours were vain. But the history of the whole trans- 
action, as he often observed, affords a useful lesson to 
those who, like himself, felt the evil of the law which was 
ultimately passed. 

The establishment of a Divinity College was at this 
time an object the x\rchbishop had much at heart, to sup- 
ply a want deeply felt by himself and others. The view 
was to furnish a more accurate and careful theological 
training than could be received at the University, where so 
many other objects necessarily occupied the time and atten- 
tion of the students. The plan was well digested and 
carefully matured ; and the Archbishop proposed to main- 

H 2 



100 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1834 

tain the institution by devoting a portion of the income of 
the See to its support. 

The correspondence with Dr. Newman, which follows, 
needs no explanation. The general rule observed in this 
work has been to insert no letters but those of Archbishop 
Whately; but, in this case, Dr. Newman's answer to his 
first letter could not be omitted without making the whole 
appear confused. 

To Rev. J. H. Newman, B.D. 

'Dublin: Oct, 25, 1834. 

6 My dear Newman, — A most shocking report concerning 
you has reached me, which, indeed, carries such an im- 
probability on the face of it that you may perhaps wonder 
at my giving it a thought ; and at first I did not, but 
finding it repeated from different quarters, it seems to 
me worth contradicting for the sake of your character. 

' Some Oxford undergraduates, I find, openly report 
that when I was at Oriel last spring you absented yourself 
from chapel on purpose to avoid receiving the communion 
along with me, and that you yourself declared this to be 
the case. I would not notice every idle rumour, but this 
has been so confidently and so long asserted that it would 
be a satisfaction to me to be able to declare its falsity as a 
fact, from your authority. I did indeed at once declare 
my utter unbelief, but then this has only the weight of 
my opinion ; though an opinion resting, I think, on no in- 
sufficient grounds. I did not profess to rest my disbelief 
on our long, intimate, and confidential friendship, which 
would make it your right and your duty, if I did anything 
to offend you, or anything you might think materially 
wrong, to remonstrate with me ; but on your general 
character, which I was persuaded would have made you 
incapable, even had no such close connection existed be- 
tween us, of conduct so unchristian and inhuman. But, 
as I said, I should like for your sake to be able to contra- 
dict the report from your authority. 

' Ever yours very truly, 

6 E. Whately.' 



^Et. 47] NEWMAN S VINDICATORY REPLY. 101 



'Oriel College: Oct. 28, 1834. 

c My dear Lord, — My absence from the Sacrament in 
the College Chapel on the Sunday you were in Oxford, 
was occasioned solely and altogether by my having it on 
that day in St. Mary's ; and I am pretty sure, if I may 
trust my memory, that I did not even know of your Grace's 
presence there till after the service. Most certainly such 
knowledge would not have affected my attendance. I need 
not say, this being the case, that the report of my having 
made any statement on the subject is quite unfounded ; 
indeed, your letter of this morning is the first information 
I have had in any shape of the existence of the report. 

6 I am happy in being thus able to afford an explanation 
as satisfactory to you as the kind feelings which you have 
ever entertained towards me could desire ; yet, on honest 
reflection, I cannot conceal from myself that it was gene- 
rally a relief to me to see so little of your Grace, when 
you were in Oxford, and it is a greater relief now to have 
an opportunity of saying so to yourself. I have ever 
wished to observe the rule, never to make a public charge 
against another behind his back; and though, in the 
course of conversation and the urgency of accidental oc- 
currences, it is sometimes difficult to keep to it, yet I trust I 
have not broken it, especially in your own case : i.e., though 
my most intimate friends know how deeply I deplore the 
line of ecclesiastical policy adopted under your archie- 
piscopal sanction, and though in society I may have clearly 
shown that I have an opinion one way rather than the 
other, yet I have never in my intention, never (as I be- 
lieve) at all, spoken of your Grace in a serious way before 
strangers ; indeed, mixing little in general society, and 
not over-apt to open myself in it, I have had little tempta- 
tion to do so. Least of all should I so forget myself, as to 
take undergraduates into my confidence in such a matter. 

4 1 wish I could convey to your Grace the mixed and 
very painful feelings which the late history of the Irish 
Church has raised in me — the union of her members with 
men of heterodox views, and the extinction (without 



102 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1834 

ecclesiastical sanction) of half her candlesticks, 1 the wit- 
nesses and guarantees of the Truth and the trustees of the 
Covenant. I willingly own, that both in my secret judg- 
ment and my mode of speaking concerning you to my 
friends, I have had great alternations and changes of 
feeling — defending, then blaming your policy, next prais- 
ing yourself and protesting against your measures, accord- 
ing as the affectionate remembrances which I had of you 
rose against my utter aversion of the secular and unbe- 
lieving policy in which I considered the Irish Church to 
be implicated, I trust I shall never be forgetful of the 
kindness you uniformly showed me during your residence 
in Oxford, and anxiously hope that no duty to Christ and 
His Church may ever interfere with my expression of it. 
However, on the present opportunity, I am conscious to 
myself that I am acting according to the dictates both of 
duty and gratitude., if I beg your leave to state my per- 
suasion, that the perilous measures in which your Grace 
has acqruiesced are but the legitimate offspring of those 
principles, difficult to describe in few words, with which 
your reputation is associated ; principles which bear upon 
the very fundamentals of all argument and investigation, 
and affect almost every doctrine and every maxim by 
which our faith and our conduct depend. I can feel no 
reluctance to confess that, when I first was connected with 
your Grace, gratitude to }^ou and admiration of your 
character weighed strongly upon me ; and, had not some- 
thing from within resisted, I should certainly have adopted 
views on religious and social questions, such as seem to 
my present judgment to be based on the pride of reason 
and tending towards infidelity, and which in your own 
case nothing but your Grace's high religious temper and 
the unclouded faith of your mind have been able to with- 
stand. I am quite confident that, however you may regret 
my judgment, you will give me credit not only for honesty, 
but for a deeper feeling in thus laying it before you. 

1 By the Irish Church Temporalities Act (passed August 14, 1833), two 
archbishoprics were prospectively abolished, and the suffragan bishoprics 
reduced by consolidation from eighteen to ten. 



2Et. 47] HIS ANSWER TO NEWMAN. 103 

6 May I be suffered to add that your name is ever men- 
tioned in my prayers, and to subscribe myself, 
' Your Grace's very sincere friend and servant, 

' John H. Newman ? ' 

'October, 1834. 

c My dear N. ? — I cannot refrain from writing again, to 
express the great satisfaction I feel in the course I adopted, 
which has, eventually, put it in my power to contradict — 
as of course I shall — a report which was more prevalent 
and more confidently upheld than I could have supposed 
possible ; and which, while it was, perhaps, likely to hurt 
my character with some persons, was injurious to yours in 
the eyes of those of a more Christian temper. 

' For what idea must anyone have had of religion —or 
at least of your religion — who was led to believe there was 
any truth in the imputation to you of such uncharitable 
arrogance ? 

6 But it is a rule with me not to cherish, even on the 
strongest assertions, any belief, or even suspicion, to the 
prejudice of one whom I have any reason to think well of, 
till I have carefully enquired and dispassionately heard 
both sides. And I think, if others were to adopt the same 
rule, I should not myself be quite so much abused as I 
have been. I am well aware, indeed, that one cannot 
expect all, even good men, to think alike on every point, 
even after they shall have heard both sides, and that we 
may expect many to judge, after all, very harshly of those 
who do differ from them ; for, God help us, what will be- 
come of men if they receive no more mercy than they 
show to each other ! But, at least, if the rule were ob- 
served, men would not condemn a brother on mere vague 
popular rumour about principles (as in my case), " difficult 
to describe in few words, and with which his reputation 
is associated." My own reputation I know is associated 
very extensively with what are in fact calumnious impu- 
tations, originating in exaggerated, misrepresented, or 
absolutely false statements, for which even those who 
circulate them admit, for the most part, that the}? have no 



104 LIFE OF ASCHBISH;0P TVHATELT. [1834 

other ground than popular rumour ; like the Eornan Jews. 
••' As for this way. we know that it is everywhere spoken 
against.' 5 For I have ascertained that a very large pro- 
portion of those who join in the outcry against my works, 
confess, or even boast, that they have never read them. 
And in respect of the measure you advert to, the Church 
Temporalities Act (which, of course. I shall not now dis- 
cuss ), it is curious to see how many of those who load me 
with censure for acquiescing in it. receive with open arms 
and laud to the skies the Prirnate, who was consulted — as 
was natural, considering his influence and his long experi- 
ence in Irish affairs — long before me. and gave his consent 
to the measure, differing from Ministers only en a p jint 
of detail — whether the revenues of sis sees or of ten should 
be alienated. Of course everyone is bound ultimately ;: 
decide according to his own judgment, nor do I mean 
even to shelter myself under his example ; but only : ; 
point out what strange notions of justice those have who 
acquit with applause the leader, and condemn the follower^ 
in the same individual transaction. 

'Far be it from any follower of Our Master tc feel sur- 
prise or anger at any treatment of this kind : it is only 
an admonition to me to avoid treating others in a similar 
manner, and not to judge another servant, at k :. ; . : without 
a fair hearing. 

'You do me no more than justice in feeling confident 
that I shall give you credit both for fi honesty " and fox 
" a deeper feeling/' in freely laying your opinions before 
me ; and besides this, you might also have been confid 
from your own long experience, that long since — whenever 
it was that you changed your judgment respecting me — if 
yon had freely and calmly remonstrated with me on ; 
point where you thought me going wrong, I should have 
listened to you with that readiness and candour and respect 
which, as you well know. I always showed in the times 
when " we took sweet counsel together, and walked in the 
house of God as friends:*' when we consult t 1 together 
about so many practical measures, and about almost all 
the principal points in my publications. 



2Et. 47] HIS ANSWER TO NEWMAN. 105 

' I happen to have before me a letter from you just 
eight years ago, in which, after saying that "there are few 
things you wish more sincerely than to be known as a 
friend of mine," and adding a much more flattering account 
of benefits derived from me than I can pretend to merit, 
you bear a testimony, which I certainly can most heartily 
agree in, as far at least as relates to the freedom of our 
intercourse and the readiness and respect with which you 
were listened to. Your words are : " Much as I owe to 
Oriel in the way of mental improvement, to none, as I 
think, do I owe so much as to yourself. I know who it 
was first gave me heart to look about me after my election, 
and taught me to think correctly, and — strange office for 
an instructor ! — to rely upon myself. Nor can I forget 
that it has been at your kind suggestion that I have since 
been led to employ myself in the consideration of several 
subjects which I cannot doubt have been very beneficial to 
my mind. 5? 

6 If in all this I was erroneous, if I have misled you or 
anyone else into the u pride of reason/' or any other kind 
of pride, or if I have entertained, or led others to enter- 
tain, any erroneous opinions, I can only say I am sincerely 
sorry for it. x\nd I rejoice if I have been the means of 
contributing to form in anv one that "high religious 
temper and unclouded faith " of which I not only believe, 
vr it'll you, that they are able to withstand tendencies 
towards infidelity, but also that, without them, no correct- 
ness of abstract opinions is of much value. But what I 
now mean to point out is, that there was plainly nothing 
to preclude you from offering friendly admonition when 
your views of my principles changed, with a full confidence 
of being at least patiently and kindly listened to. 

6 1, for my part, could not bring myself to find relief in 
avoiding the society of an old friend, with whom I had 
been accustomed to frank discussion, on account of my 
differing from him as to certain principles — whether 
through a change in his views or (much more) in my oiun 
— till, at least, I had made full trial of private remon- 
strance and free discussion. Even a man that is a heretic, 



:;; LIFE : I" AB MBISHOI 5¥HATELY. [1834-a 

we are ::"_:".. even the mlei : ; a Church is not tc :t : t:: 
till after repeated admonitions. 

• B at though your regard foi me falls sc short of what 
i_::_t would have '::: under similar circumstances, I will 
not, therefore, :-t j t:: what remains :: it Let us pray for 
e Lch >ther 3 that it may please Grod tc enlighten whichevei 
: : v." is in any | : int in error 3 and recall him to the truth : 
. ud that^ at any rate, we may hold East that charity wi:;_- 
rat which all faith that can subsist apart from it (though 
enough to remove mountains . and all knowledge, will 
m -ofit us nothing. 3 

The winter :: this year brought him a deep and un- 
Ic )ked-foi triaL His valued friend Blancc White suddenly 
announced tc him that _r had embraced S :inian view s 3 
and that, in : msec [uence, Lr thought :: best tc give 
his residence in the family and remove :: Liverj ; y\ —here 
many of his new friends resided. It may easily be 
imagined that this was a blow :: no ordinary kind tc the 
friends with whom he had sc long lived as ;. brother. 

The Archbishop's steady and unswerving faith in the 
:::ir_irL: and livinity >fthe Lord resus Christ; his 
sense :: the vital importance :: that loctrine as the 
groundwork :: :_r Christian scheme, and :: the impossi- 
bility rfany honest interpretation ;: the New Testament 
without admitting it, were such as to make him mourn 
his friend's lefection with heartfelt sorrow; but the cir- 
^umstai 3es attending i: were :: a more than usually pain- 
ful character. For many months previously he had been 
in a state :: t:;::t^7^: and irritability :: nerves a with 
: scasional incoherency, which could not hut cause mi 
alarm to Li- friends: the mental struggles which he had 
undergone throughout a life marked by :r:als of no ordi- 
nary kind, had evidently unhinged his mind and shaken 
to the utmost his always sensitive xrganisatioiL 

Ithas frequently been alleged that the friends of this 
afflicted man 'gave him up' on this leclaration :: his 
change :■: sentiments, and in particular that the Arch- 
bishop lid so. So much are :"_t true facts the :r 



^t. 48] LETTERS TO BLANCO WHITE. ]07 

this misrepresentation, that, perhaps, seldom has a be- 
wildered and tried sufferer been the subject of tenderer 
or more thoughtful care from his nearest relations, than 
this solitary exile received from those who were bound to 
him by no ties save those of friendship. His own feelings 
and wishes made it impossible for him to reside among 
them, and such an intimate association could have been 
productive of nothing but pain on either side ; but from 
the time of his removal to Liverpool, to his death in 1841, 
he was supported partly by a pension from the Archbishop, 
and partly by one from another friend. He maintained 
an affectionate and frequent correspondence with the family 
at Eedesdale, as well as with most of his other friends. 
Whenever any of the Archbishop's family were passing 
through Liverpool they visited him ; and a note dictated 
from his deathbed, and showing the same affectionate 
sympathy and confidence in them all, is now in the writer's 
possession. 

But the letters which follow will speak for themselves. 
For convenience' sake, we have put those together which 
were addressed by the Archbishop to Mr. B. "White on this 
painful subject, 

'Dublin: January 15, 1835. 

6 My dear Friend , — Wh en you arrange your style of living, 
pray make use of that formula which is so much praised 
and so seldom thought of in practice, of considering what 
you would wish me to do, if we were to change places. 
You will then, I am sure, recollect that since each mutton- 
chop you eat does not cost me more now, than when you 
ate it in my house, and since it would have been certainly 
no gratification to me then, that you should eat a chop the 
less from regard to my pocket, so neither can it be so 
now. It is true there are persons from whom you would 
accept an invitation to dinner at their houses, from whom 
you would not accept anything else; but I am not in that 
list ; and from him from whom you will condescend to 
accept a sixpence you need not scruple at a shilling, on 
any other ground than a belief that he could not afford it. 



108 LIFE OF AECHB1SHOP WHATELY. [1835 

' I have suggested to Mr. Zulueta, 1 in a note accom- 
panying the books (and from what I have seen of his 
letters, struggling with an imperfect command of English, 
he strikes me as a most uncommonly common-sense man), 
that perhaps a translation into Spanish might be worth 
while, with a view, if not to Spain direct, at least to the 
colonies. I am inclined to think that the sun of right 
reason will rise on Spain from the west. 

' As to your other matters of deliberation, I will say no 
more than to recommend you to keep close to an adviser 
whom you can hardly find fault with — yom'self I mean — 
for the present ; that you should read what you think fit, 
and reflect in private, and, if you see cause, go to hear 
preachers of any denomination ; but not discuss personally, 
yet a while, either orally or by letter, the theological and 
ecclesiastical questions with which you are occupied with 
anybody. I really do not think you strong enough, ^t 
present, to bear the excitement of a controversial discus- 
sion with any one who might be disposed, however mildly 
and candidly, to oppose your views ; and I need hardly 
add, that to keep aloof from these, and to hold intercourse 
with those, and those only, who coincide with you or are 
prepared to adopt whatever you propose, would not be 
giving yourself a fair chance for attaining truth. You have 
practically adopted this recommendation, in some degree 
(and wisely, if the above view be a just one), in abstain- 
ing from the discussion of the subjects alluded to, with 
Wilson, Dickinson, myself, &c. ; and it is almost super- 
fluous to add, that 3Ir. Armstrong, or any one else of his 
school, though he may be right and I wrong, cannot be 
deserving of more of your confidence than your friends 
here. 

'Then why should I mention at all what seems so ob- 
vious ? Because you are a lion ; and it is but the part of 
a friend to warn you of the traps, however well qualified 
you may be to take care of your own steps yourself, which 
are set to catch a lion for a. show. When first you quitted 

1 A Spanish friend of Mr. Blanco White. 



^Et. 48] LETTERS TO BLANCO WHITE. lo9 

the Eomish Church you were made a Protestant lion of; 
and you have often laughed at the " no-popery " folks 
here who talked of " bringing over B. AY. 5 ' to go about as 
a missionary, &c. But they would not have talked in the 
same style to you, if they had, at the time, made a serious 
effort to catch you. You would have been assailed by — 
what is, I think, a far severer trial than persecution, to 
auy one who has any spirit — that cordial, I will not say 
flattery (for it would have been sincere), but unmixed and 
unbounded praise and veneration, which addresses itself 
at once to two of the most powerful principles within us 
— our desire of self-complacent feelings towards our owm 
character, and our benevolent sympathy with others; taking 
in, phrenologically speaking, good part of the forehead, 
and most of the occiput. 

' To apologise for the freedom with which I write, would 
not be to treat you as a friend. The least hint that any- 
thing I say is taken amiss, or that what is meant as a 
warning against a trial is taken as in fact an imputation 
of weakness, will stop me at once. 

6 1 have told Senior the tale of the two goats (do you 
remember it?) who met on a narrow ledge on the face of 
a cliff, when there was no room to pass or retreat ; and 
after a pause of great interest to the spectators, one goat 
lay down for the other to walk over. It would do for a 
hieroglyphic frontispiece. 

6 Mrs. Whately rather gains ground than not, but is 
still weak. c Ever your affectionate, 

<K. W. 

'P.S. — The kindest enquiries are made for you (and 
indeed have long been, though I have not reported them 
to you) by most of the clergy.' 

'Dublin: January 20, 1835. 

6 My dear Friend, — What do you think ? I have written 
to Sir B. Peel, sending copies of my w Punishments," and 
exhorting him to immortalise himself by taking steps to 
remove this crying evil. If he goes out, I think there can 
be no harm done ; if he stays in, there may be good. 



110 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1835 

' You are, perhaps, envying us our mild climate, but I 
promise you there is a good English frost here as you 
would wish to see. 

* While writing, I must correct one mistake you made 
as to my meaning in my last. I was very far from mean- 
ing to hint that you had not read (more, probably, by a 
great deal, than are worth reading) the writers on both 
sides in the Trinitarian controversies. What I said was in 
substance, " Eead books, or hear sermons, or meditate in 
private, just as much or as little as you please, but do not 
discuss personally, either in conversation or by letter, any 
points with the one party which you do not so discuss with 
the other." I dare say I did not express myself with any 
great precision, but I wonder at your not recollecting how 
many, many times I have said, that nothing, in my opinion, 
tends so much to dispose an intelligent mind towards 
anti- Trinitarian views, as the Trinitarian works. 

'With regard to the advice I did mean to take the 
liberty of giving, it might perhaps be answered, that those 
who have no benefices to lose may safely be consulted, 
though not those who have. But I would reply that there 
are many other feelings likely to bias a man's judgment 
besides mere interest — such as ambition of taking a lead, 
desire of celebrity, being influential in the world — that 
pertinacity in maintaining a position taken up, which 
Thucydides calls cf>L\ovsi/cta — a feeling of heroism in en- 
countering a sort of martyrdom, and making sacrifices, 
the consciousness of which supports and consoles ascetics 
of all kinds, &c, &c. 

6 All these are feelings as likely and more so to bias 
some minds, as bodily comfort and worldly profit others. 

4 For myself, though I presume not to say how far I am 
prepared to " pluck out the eye or cut off the hand that 
offend me," I feel convinced of this, that as far as external 
persuasions go, the temptations to separate from the 
Church are at least as strong as those towards adherence 
to it ; I mean to a man of my disposition. In point of 
wealth, the revenues of the see have made no difference 
(for the better at least) in my bodily ease and comfort; 



^Et. 48] LETTEES TO BLANCO WHITE. Ill 

state and splendour, &c. are a mere inconvenience to me. 
My patrimony, though not large, is enough to afford me a 
subsistence. If I wished to increase my income I could 
take pupils, who would give me probably much less trouble 
than those I now have. My children will probably be 
nothing the richer for the archbishopric ; and as for good 
report and evil report, I verily think I should have less 
obloquy to encounter than now; for after the first yell 
had a little subsided, many even of the most intolerant 
bigots would be so glad to be rid of me, that they would 
be ready not only to forgive but to praise my open seces- 
sion. And then, what an illustrious seceder, what an 
heroic martyr, w 7 hat a valued advocate would an arch- 
bishop — and he an author of celebrity — become ! All the 
adversaries of the Establishment (who are not few) would 
receive me with loud cheers, however their own opinions 
might differ from each other or from mine. There would 
be the common bond of common hostility, and all friends 
and foes would give me credit for most magnanimous and 
disinterested self-devotion ; for whatever feelings of vanity, 
ambition, love of glory, or resentment, I might be influ- 
enced by, these are never called interested motives. On 
the other side, I have to endure opposition, insult, calumny, 
suspicion, contempt, hatred, from the violent, the thought- 
less, the weak, the worldly, the partisans of all sides ; and 
what (in a worldly point of view) is my reward ? To wear 
lawn-sleeves and be called " Your Grace ! " — ornaments 
which, however honourable, are not at all less so to him 
who voluntarily lays them down, than to him who wears 
them. I strive and pray to take an unbiassed course of duty; 
but, as far as external inducements go, the circumstances 
tending to bias me are, as far as I can judge, not prepon- 
derant on the side I have as yet taken. I hope to act 
without prejudice, but sure I am the causes leading to 
prejudice are not all on one side. In your case, when you 
were in Spain you had much more to sacrifice, and appa- 
rently less worldly compensation. Yet I think had I known 
you then, I should have paid you the compliment of dis- 
cussing with you (supposing I had found you perfectly 



112 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP YTHATELY. [1835 

ready and -willing) questions involving your continuance 
in that Church. However, I do not at all mean that we 
should run the risk of unsettling the minds of those un- 
accustomed to study reflection and logical reasoning, by 
suddenly putting before them in a startling form, before 
they " are able to bear it," the whole of such views as. how- 
ever just, they may not be able at once fully to embrace. 
To recur to an illustration I have often used, a clown who is 
taught that the sun stands still, before he can be brought 
to comprehend and believe his own motion round the 
earth's axis, is much more perplexed than instructed, and 
is bewildered by the alternations of day and night. Senor 
Zulueta will need your help in English, if not in Political 
Economy. I am much gratified to hear of his design. 

6 Ever your affectionate 

Extract from a letter to the same, dated September 7. 

' And now, having said all that I thought, perhaps mis- 
takenly, I was bound in friendship to say on the subject, 
and all that I think there can ever be need to say, it will 
be best from this time to drop the subject of our differences 
of opinion, and to correspond as friends agreeing on many 
points — and in none more, I trust, than in mutual good- 
will towards each other. 

' I send you a sermon delivered and published in behalf 
of a charity which I think highly deserving, not only of 
support here, but of extension to other places. The charity 
embraces people of all persuasions, and the sermon keeps 
clear of all points of controversy. Perhaps it might be 
well to send it to the patrons of some hospital in Liver- 
pool. 

6 Since I wrote last I have read some more (I cannot say 
all) of the first article in the second number of the " Lon- 
don Review." Pray read p. 282, and then the passage in 
Copleston which is referred to : which it is plain the writer 
must have had before him, while it is equally plain he 
trusts to his readers not having it before them. Every 



JEr. 48] LETTERS TO BLANCO WHITE. 113 

reader of the " Eeview " is led to suppose that it is on 
some point of religion or politics that Locke is censured 
for " relying on evidence," the whole question being, in 
fact, concerning the utility of boys' writing exercises — a 
question in which, as it is altogether one of opinion, all 
must admit that the judgment of experienced men, such 
as Quinctilian, is an " evidence " (if that word is to be used 
in such a case) deserving of much attention. And this 
most impudent misrepresentation, brought in as the basis 
of the bitterest invective, is framed by a man who is not 
ashamed to talk in high-flown language about "truth! " 
All who have any notions of morality, whatever may be 
their religious views, must be disgusted with such baseness. 
One is not indeed responsible for everything that is said in 
all parts of a Eeview to which one contributes ; but I feel 
sure that if you could have calculated (I am sure I did 
not) on the writers indulging in a strain of such deliberate 
and malignant falsehood, you would have shunned them 
as if infected with the plague. 

' Have you seen Lord Brougham's " Natural Theology," 
and Mr. Wallace's remarks on him ? I had not expected 
much from anything I had heard of Mr. Wallace ; but 
from what I have seen, he appears to be a much sounder 
philosopher than Lord B. 

4 1 hope this letter may find you better than the last did. 
I grieve that that should have arrived just when you had 
been shattered by a recent attack. But that I could not 
foresee. That it may please Grod to smooth your path 
through the remainder of this life, as much as His wisdom 
may see good for you, and after this life to bring you to 
His eternal rest, is the fervent and daily prayer of your 
sincere friend, 

' E. W T HATELY.' 



114 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1835-6 



CHAPTER V. 

1835—1837. 

Visits Tunbridge Wells — Visit of Dr. Arnold — Pressed by Mr. Senior to 
exchange for an English bishopric — Letter to Mr. Senior on the subject — 
His views on the importance of moral over intellectual education — Letter 
to Mr. Senior — Letter to Bishop of Llandaff on University Examinations 
— Letter to a clergyman on Religion — Letters to Eev. J. Tyler on In- 
vocation of Saints, &c. — Letter to Bishop of Norwich on Irish Chnrch 
questions — Letter to Blanco White, and generous concern for his welfare 
— Letter to Dr. Dickinson on Abolition of Superfluous Oaths— Letter to 
Lord John Russell — Letter to a lady on State of Ireland — Table Talk : 
on Tract arianism— Letter to Mr. Senior on Colonisation — Petition to the 
Queen on Administration of Oaths by Chancellor of the Order of St. 
Patrick. 

The year 1835, which had begun so sorrowfully, was 
spent by the Archbishop in his usual indefatigable labours 
in his diocese, combined with an amount of literary activity 
which to many would appear incompatible with diligence 
in any other department. It was varied by a summer visit 
to his friends at Tunbridge Wells, in which his family, as 
usual, accompanied him. Tunbridge Wells is, indeed, a 
place almost identified with recollections of him. He was 
always partial to the place, and his relatives there look 
back with mournful pleasure to those early visits. The 
long rambles which, in such days, he delighted to take in 
the beautiful country around, especially in the Ba3diam 
Woods, are associated with his memory; and one lofty 
spreading tree, ' The Monarch of the Woods,' though not 
an oak but a sycamore, stands conspicuous for miles round, 
where his brother-in-law, the only survivor of the party, 
recollects their taking shelter from a snowstorm in May, 
with their friends, the Eev. Henry Bishop and Mr. Nassau 
Senior — all now passed away. 



^Et. 49] VISIT OF DE. ARNOLD. U.5 

Another recollection of his sojournings at Tunbrido-e 
Wells is connected with his visits to the Chapel Free 
School, where, with his characteristic love of teaching, he 
would delight the boys with questions, as they pleased him 
with their ready and intelligent answers ; and on such 
occasions would indulge them, at parting, with some riddle 
or arithmetical puzzle, which they long remembered. But 
this is a digression. 

Little is to be related of the year 1836 excepting what 
the letters tell. The Archbishop spent it chiefly in Ireland. 
A visit from his friend Dr. Arnold, with part of his family, 
formed a pleasant episode. One of the younger members 
of Dr. Arnold's family writes; C I remember the Arch- 
bishop's taking the whole party to visit the Marlborough 
Street Model Schools. We met Mr, Blake there (the 
Eoman Catholic commissioner for national education, for 
whom the Archbishop had a great esteem), I suppose by 
appointment, and heard him examine a large class, in 
which I think there were two Jews and several Protes- 
tants, in the Scripture lessons sanctioned by the Board of 
Common Instruction. The way in which he did it, so as 
to steer clear of all controverted matters, and yet elicit 
from the children the essential facts of the Scripture 
narrative, was exceedingly ingenious.' 

The following letter was written by the Archbishop in 
answer to a suggestion of his friend Mr. Senior. He in 
common with others of the Archbishop's English friends 
felt painfully the opposition and contumely he had to 
encounter in his diocese, and earnestly desired to see 
their friend in a sphere which they conceived would be 
more congenial to him, and would supply a more fruitful 
field for his powers — especially by enabling him to attend 
constantly in Parliament, and thus to acquire that perma- 
nent influence in the House which alternate sessions would 
not admit of. With these views, Mr. Senior pressed him 
to apply, or to consent to others applying for him, for an 
exchange to an English bishopric. The answer speaks for 
itself: — 

i 2 



116 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1836 

To X. Senior. Esq. 

'March 9. 1S36. 

6 I had meant, but was too much hurried, to answer 
your last bv return. Of course you know it is against my 
•principles to ask Ministers for anything. But to say the 
truth, should they offer to let me retire (it would be a 
retirement) on an English bishopric. I should refuse. It 
may be that the state of Ireland is hopeless, but it never 
shall be said that I contributed to make it so. It would 
be thought (in my opinion justly — but at any rate it 
would be thought) that I had retreated from being hope- 
less of anv adequate success, and being wearied out with 
opposition and obloquy. And this suspicion (I think it 
would be more than suspicion) would not only embitter all 
my future life, but would greatly cripple my exertions in 
an English diocese. If I were in an English diocese, and 
were offered Dublin, I should think twice before I accepted 
it, foregoing a situation in which I should have been ac~ 
tuallv doing good: but to u take up a fresh position'' (as 
beaten generals call it), commodiously situated in the rear 
of my present, would bear, I think, but one interpretation. 
I wonder this did not strike you, especially at such a crisis 
for Ireland. It seems to me that to accept advancement 
to an English archbishopric would be a very different 
thing : but should I find that this also would be inter- 
preted in the same manner, this also shall be refused. 

' If you still differ from me, no more need be said ; but 
if vou fully adopt my views, and would write something 
to that effect that I could read or show, it might be of 
use/ 

The fragment that follows is to a friend on the educa- 
tion of his son, a youth of considerable promise, in whom 
the x\rchbishop was much interested. His views on the 
importance of moral over merely intellectual education 
were always very strong : — 

'I warn vou not to trust to ictellt-ctual powers for 



JEt. 49] LETTER TO MR. SENIOR. 117 

formiDg a moral character; at least till you can find, 
which I never could, some one instance of success. It is 
a great paradox, but it is true, that though honesty is the 
best policy, no none ever yet did (though in this or that 
particular case he may) steadily act upon it, without moral 
seutiment. The fact is, that it is only by long experience 
the truth of the maxim can be fully brought home to each 
man's own understanding ; and long before this experience 
can have been acquired, the moral character is so far 
formed that the habits are nearly inveterate. Many a 
sensualist in like manner comes to understand that tem- 
perance insures the greatest amount of bodily enjoyment, 
but not till after he is an incurable sot and debauchee.' 

Extract of a Letter to Mr. Senior. 

< Dublin: Oct. 2, 1836. 

' My dear S., — A great proportion of those who come to 
Ireland to see things with their own eyes, and then declare 
the opinions they have formed of "Ireland, its evils, and 
their remedies," might just as well have stayed at home, 
since they come to seek, not conclusions, but premises. 

' They bring with them ready-made theories and plans, 
and then declare that everything they have seen and heard 
in Ireland has confirmed their convictions ; which is true 
enough, because they come to listen to the "bells," and 
everything that they meet with is viewed through the 
medium of their own prepossessions. " As the fool thinketh, 
so the bell clinketh." Now some of these plans and 
theories may be very right, and at any rate they may be 
right in assuring the public that such is their sincere con- 
viction ; and it may be true also that it has been formed 
in Ireland, though this might have taken place while they 
were fly-ushing in the Lake of Killarney. The abuse of 
the public is in pretending that their opinion is, when it 
is not, derived from what they have observed here. " Oh, 
but they have seen the state of things ! " They have seen, 
that is, that there is distress and dirt and drunkenness — 
just what nobody in or out of Ireland doubts. But that 



118 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1S36-7 

on which the doubts exist, viz.. whether this or that m tde 

have they seen this ? or do they expect to see it before the 
trial is made ? •'•' In my mind's eye. Horatio." They often. 
I believe,, deceive themselves, a.s well as others, in the 

man goes and sees the Eildon Hills, with three tops, and 
is told it was done by Michael Scott's demon, and returns 
with a confused notion as to what it is that he is compe- 
tent to bear witness to. 

• I have seen — • — . who is gone on a tour through 

similar plan to those of England will be a safe and effec- 
tual remedy for the distresses of Ireland. 

he took it out with him. and is not likely to lose it on the 
road. but. on the contrary, to be confirmed in it by all he 
sees and hears, because he is. as far as I can iud^e. •'•' ^one 



To the Bi$h-jp of Llandaf. 

'Dublin: Oct, 19. 1836. 

<lMy dear Lord. — It gave me great pleasure to hear a 
continued good account of you. I am my- el: .rally 

hard-worked, and ofv-n in an unsatisf : ~. partly 

owing to the defect in our svstem of so-ealh-d Church 
government. to which tou advert. Ana I relieve every 
bishop who at ail attempts to do hi : - duty rinds sorrmt: : 
of the same inconvenience. Why. then, do t'ney not mee 

true? Because thev fear thev shvakl ma be listened to? 
Perhaps not: but at lea^t they worn d ih-1 that tlmy 

bishops only coming f;rwar:l -vhen s:me oue-t 

■alities is discussed, and in what relates to tbeir own 
episcopal functions, taking no nuolic step, even when their 

private opinions are most deciied. If you wvai i v. no the 



Mr. 50] LETTER TO THE BISHOP OF LLANDAFF. 119 

lead in this matter, I do think many would follow : one 
you may be sure of, as I am in Parliament. 

' I am sure you know me too well to attribute to me 
what is in truth the worst kind of credulity — hasty pre- 
judice against an honest man, or one who may be honest, 
founded on the detection of a knave. But you may re- 
collect that I only pointed out the necessity (and that, by- 

the-bye, Mr. 's case does prove, were proof needed) of 

careful enquiry and examination, even when a man brings 
such high testimonials as might seem to supersede the 
necessity of it. Examination wrongs no one. Genuine 
coin is not damaged by the test, and counterfeit deserves 
detection. And my experience would have convinced me, 
had I doubted it, that some zealous Protestants are so 
eager for a convert, that they hastily take for granted a 
man's being a sincere Protestant if he does but echo all 
they say, and answer leading questions to their wish ; when 
perhaps he is, as I have found in some cases, too ignorant 
(to waive all suspicions of deliberate falsehood) to be pro- 
perly called either Roman Catholic or Protestant, from 
his knowing, I may say, nothing of either the one religion 
or the other. Mr. , for instance, I found more igno- 
rant of the Bible than you would suppose any child of 
twelve years could be in a tolerable charity school. He 
set up, moreover, for a classical and mathematical tutor, 
and was believed on his bare word, till I found him un- 
able to construe correctly a plain Latin sentence, barely 
knowing the Grreek letters, and not knowing what a tri- 
angle is. To prevent mistakes, I gave him a bit of paper, 
and told him to draw one which he did thus Y. Yet he 
Lad been engaged as tutor in a gentleman's family ! ' 

The first letter of the year 1837 is addressed to a 
clerical friend, who had written to consult him on some 
matters which were strongly occupying his mind. The 
subject will be seen in the answer : — 



J20 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [1837 

To a Clergyman, in reply to a letter ivritten by him. 

'February, 1837. 

6 Supposing you strongly impressed with the sentiments 
you express, I should say, to you and to all who are ex- 
periencing a similar awakening, that what you have most 
to guard against is impatience. He who has lost a great 
deal of time, and is anxious to repair the loss, is apt first 
to wish for (which is quite right and natural), and then to 
expect (which is most absurd), a proportionally rapid pro- 
gress in recovering his lost ground. And the end com- 
monly is, that he either grows soon " weary in well-doing," 
or else, in seeking a short cut, strikes into a wrong path, 
and goes irrecoverably astray. The error is not by any 
means peculiar to the case of religion and morals. A man 
in travelling has lagged behind, and then gallops on im- 
patiently and knocks up his horse, or strikes across fields 
and loses his way. A man has been idle at college, and 
seeks to make up, just at the last, by reading fourteen 
hours a day instead of seven, because, forsooth, he has 
twice as much to do as a steady student; but his wants 
cannot give him corresponding powers ; his former idle- 
ness makes application the more, not the less fatiguing, 
and also the less available in point of progress. And I 
have often seen such a man either lay himself up by ill- 
ness, or, b)^ hurried and superficial study, fail of the ad- 
vancement he might have made. The same thing may 
be seen in those who are in a hurry to recover strength 
and flesh after an illness, and in a multitude of other 
cases. 

'A man who is in any respect reforming should be 
cautioned, not indeed against being too earnest and dili- 
gent, but against being impatient. You must warn such 
a man to make up his mind to meet with much greater 
toil and difficulty in pursuing the path of. duty than those 
who have long pursued it, and yet with all his exertion to 
find himself for a considerable time falling short of them. 
The poorer a man is, the more bard will he have to labour 
for small gains, inferior to what a richer makes with less 



JEt. 50] IILXTS ON SELF-REFORMATION. 121 

labour. This is very mortifying, but a poor man who will 
not make up his mind to this will never become rich. 

' Even the "conviction of sin" (which is the favourite 
phrase of certain religionists) is not to be administered 
with effect, as some spiritual quacks do, as a first dose, to 
be gulped down all at once like a bolus. You must warn 
the self-reformer that if he is really in the right way, and 
keeps to it, he will have much more of genuine conviction 
of sin a year hence than he has now, because his standard 
will have risen, his moral and spiritual taste improved, as 
he advances. As the light grows brighter, he will see 
more and more of the stains, and will find himself, when 
considerably advanced, really backwarder even than he had 
fancied himself at starting. All this (though he ought to 
take it as a good sign) is humiliating, and will prove, if it 
come unexpectedly and without previous warning, dis- 
heartening. But it is the appointment of Providence, 
and it is of no use to attempt to disguise it, that humility 
is the only road to improvement ; that a double portion of 
patient and humble labour is necessary for those who have 
lagged behind ; and that humility is an alterative medicine 
which must be swallowed drop by drop, without seeking 
to evade its bitterness in any way, if it is to operate 
rightly. 

' Warn men against hoping for and seeking a short cut 
to Christian perfection because, forsooth, they wish for it 
and need it. Those are mere quacks who profess to wash 
away the effects of a life of intemperance by a few draughts 
of their balms and elixirs ; they give a delusive stimulus 
to an enfeebled constitution, and hurry their deluded pa- 
tient to the grave. And those spiritual quacks who teach 
men to dispense with a "patient continuance in well- 
doing," and flatter to his ruin the wretched dupe, who 
turns away impatiently from sound advisers — from such 
as prescribe, to one peculiarly averse to (because unac- 
customed to) all exertion after practical holiness, that 
double exertion which, for this very reason, is needful. 
Many a stray lamb returning to the fold is intercepted by 
these wolves in sheep's clothing. 



122 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1837 

6 The usual result is, that while for a time some evils 
are corrected, others and worse come in their place : for 
instance, for thoughtless and reckless confidence is substi- 
tuted spiritual pride under the guise of humility : for a 
mixture of malignant envy with veneration felt towards 
better Christians, a still more malignant contempt ; for 
utter carelessness about Grod, a familiar and most de- 
grading and injurious idea of Him ; and ultimately, very 
often a return, and more than return, to the 6i world and 
the flesh," in addition to the devil ; with the addition of 
a firm belief that they are still accounted righteous on 
account of Christ's righteousness being imputed to them 
and reckoned as theirs. The evil spirit returns accom- 
panied by seven worse, and "they enter in and dwell 
there, and the last state of that man is worse than the 
first." 

In this year the Archbishop was again in Parlia- 
ment, taking an active part in all that could bear upon 
Irish affairs. The principal object on which he was en- 
gaged in this session, was that of bringing before the 
Government the results of the enquiries made into the 
working of the new educational system. The Archbishop 
was examined as a witness before a committee of the House 
of Lords on this subject. 

The letters to his friend Mr. Tyler, the Sector of St. 
Giles, which appear as among the earliest of this year, 
are on points which he regarded as of deep importance — 
the Saints' Invocations, and the deprecation of appeal to 
evidence in the Romish Church : — 

'Dublin. March 17, 1SS7. 
c My dear Tyler, — ... Of course I should never have 
thought of retaining any allusion to my own confirma- 
tions. But what a pity it is that the administration of 
the Eucharist does not always accompany the rite ! It 
does, to be sure, greatly increase my labour. But when 
I become too feeble to bear the fatigue, I shall withdraw 
after the Confirmation, but still leave the clergy to cele- 



^Et. 50] ON THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS. 123 

brate the Communion. If you were to ask my clergy, 
including many who have not even yet shaken off their 
prejudices against me, you would find nearly all of them 
agreed that the number of habitual communicants is about 
doubled, or more, since I came, and that a great portion 
of this increase is from the rule of not leaving the young- 
people to wait till "a more convenient season." Any 
additional verbal alterations or omissions you may make 
at your own discretion. 

6 1 quite agree with you that the greatest practical cor- 
ruption of the unreformed churches (for the Greek is on 
a level with the Eomish in that) is the Invocation of Saints. 
It is a most insidious error, because it creeps in under the 
guise of humility. A man of any modesty would not 
push himself at once into the presence of the Queen, 
but would rather apply to some of her servants, unless 
expressly forbidden. 

'The ultimate result is that omniscience and om- 
nipresence are attributed to saints, and what really 
amounts to worship becomes confined to creatures. If 
you, or some one for you, would put into the form of a 
popular tract your book on Mariolatry, and add a simple 
proof that the safe side (for that is the stronghold of the 
saint -invokers ) is not for but against it, I think it would 
be very useful as a " tract for the times." 

6 " The horse," says a French proverb, u is not quite 
escaped who drags his halter." Now the halter of our 
Church in this matter is the retaining of the title of saints 
in a different sense from that in which it is invariably 
used by the Scripture writers. In their sense the humblest 
Christian is just as truly a saint as Peter or Paul. Thence 
comes the idea that a less degree of personal holiness will 
suffice for the salvation of an ordinary Christian than of 
an inspired man, or one who has performed sensible 
miracles. Thence we are led to think of admiring at a 
distance their personal holiness, without dreaming of being 
so presumptuous as to imitate it. Thence comes, again, 
a hope of their intercession; and thence, ultimately, wor- 
ship.' 



124 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1837 

To the same. 

'April 22, (probably) 1837. 

c Your reviser is very likely not aware of 

the extent to which, in Ireland at least, the notion prevails 
and is inculcated, that it is a most desirable thing to keep 
as many as possible from enquiring after any kind of 
evidence, and that those are to be most macarized who ac- 
quiesce with the most complete satisfaction in whatever 
they are told. That this should be the case with five- 
sixths of our population is not perhaps much to be won- 
dered at; but I find the same views prevailing to a 
wonderful extent among Protestants also, including the 
most zealous anti-Papists. I am most desirous to with- 
draw any censure I may be supposed to have cast on any 
who walk, as well as they can, in the best light or twilight 
they can find; the censure is for those who designedly 
leave or keep their people or themselves in darkness or in 
twilight, in preference to clearer light, and who wish that 
while people are (and will be, whether we choose or not) 
advancing in the exercise of their faculties, and in know- 
ledge in all other departments, they should be brought 
down to a lower level of contented ignorance in religion 
than was deemed sufficient even for slaves and semibar- 
barians 1800 years ago. 

( If any popular proofs which are wanting can be sup- 
plied of the genuineness and authenticity of the sacred 
books, I shall rejoice to see it done. But it is going too 
far to presume that no one needs to have it shown that 
there are proofs accessible to ordinary men of the exist- 
ence and antiquity of Greek and Hebrew writings. 

'A man of great learning and ability may chance to 
have never met with any one who had any doubts on that 
point ; but this hardly warrants the assertion of the nega- 
tive, unless at least he had conversed (as I have) with 
persons who have been present at the debating-clubs in 
the neighbourhood of Manchester, &c, and who have had 
intercourse with the members of those clubs. If he had, he 
would have found, I think, reasons for a different conclu- 



^Et. 50] UNBELIEF IN OUR SACRED BOOKS. 125 

sion. Among the educated classes, indeed, there are pro- 
bably few unbelievers who do not admit the antiquity, and 
deny the authenticity, of our sacred books ; but it is not 
so with the uneducated. And in this I stand alone : I 
will undertake to say there are multitudes who do admit 
the existence of those ancient books, but who believe this 
only — and are confident that it can be believed only — on 
the very same ground on which they admit the authen- 
ticity both of those books and likewise of all the legends 
and traditions of the Eomish Church, — viz., the word of 
their priests, who neither can nor will give them any other 
reason. Perhaps all that relates to the Eomish Church 
may be thought of very little moment in reference to the 
publications of the Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
ledge. But the fact is, a great number of Eoman Catholics 
are now beginning to read — and, to Bishop MacHale's 
extreme alarm, to read the Evidences ! ' 

The letter which follows, addressed to the Bishop of 
Norwich, is on a subject at this time deeply engrossing 
the Archbishop's mind. He was now engaged in the 
second of that series of ' Easy Lessons,' which were carried 
on at intervals throughout his life, and which, small and 
unpretending as they appeared, he regarded as of more 
real importance than his larger works. The first of the 
series, ' Lessons on Money Matters,' had been an endeavour 
to bring the leading principles of Political Economy within 
the comprehension of the young and unlearned. The 
second, which he was now commencing, was on a subject 
of higher importance, 6 The Evidences of the Truth of 
Christianity.' l He was desirous of placing within the 
reach of the mass of the people clear and comprehensive 
views of the religion they profess — such as might enable a 
humble and moderately-instructed Christian to 'give a 
reason of the hope that is in him.' 

1 First published in the ' Saturday Magazine.' 



126 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. 1 1 s 3 7 

To the Bishop of Nam: :::. 

' Leamington: July 25, 1837. 

* My dear Lord. — .... I am very glad you 
approve of the attempt. I am beginning to give an outline 
of the Evidences, chiefly for the benefit of the Roman 
Catholics, who are in great danger from the sadden influx 
of light; and yet we arc neither authorised nor able to 
keep them any longer in darkness. If. first, education be 
spread; secondly, universal scepticism be guarded again sfc, 
which is the danger of the transition state : thirdly. May- 
nooth be reformed - of which there is some h noe ; fourthly, 
if the payment of the priests can be brought about; and 
fifthly (last but not least), if the Sovereign can be brought 
to visit Ireland — not once for all, like George IV., but as 
a resident for at least a month or two every year or two — 
Ireland may become a really valuable portion of the British 
Empire, instead of a sort of morbi 1 excrescence. In some 
of these objects you have been a most aluable aid, and 
perhaps may be in more ; besides which, I hope both for 
your advice and example in that a ige — the 

introduction of a professional training for the cbri_r\ 

C -I hope you will deserve and obtain, (-sides higher 
rewards, the glory of being valued by those whose praise 
is a real credit, and liberally abused by those whose abuse 
is the onlv fflory they can confer.' 

The success of the Archbishop's attempt to brine; the 
evidence- of our religion within the comprehension of ~b^ 
unlearned has been attested by the widespres 1 circulation 
of the book in question, not only in English, but in most 
other modern languages : but proofs more interesting 
touching may be cited of it- effect on individuals. Two 
instances have come before the writer's knowledge of 
hardened infidels (both intelligent men of 'be artisan class 
who have been convinced of the truth of Christianity and 
led to the study of the Scriptures, and ultimately, as it 
ecraei. to re.ebe the tivob inc : their hearts, bv the 

One of these lived, laboured. 



.Et. 50] GENEROUS COXCEEX FOR BLANCO WHITE. 127 

and died as a missionary teacher in a foreign land; the 
other did not long* survive his conversion, but gave every 
evidence of its being a real one. These are but two iso- 
lated instances out of many which will doubtless be known 
in the day when all secrets shall be revealed. 

The following letter, to his friend Mr, Blanco White, is 
interesting, as showing the constant and generous concern 
for his welfare and comfort, which no differences of opinion 
could for a moment slacken : — 

1 Leamington : August 1837. 

' My dear Blanco, — Eemind Mrs. W„, in case she should 
forget, of the books from Senior, which she is bringing 
you. He has been writing for a conveyance for them. 

' And pray consult with her on the subject which I 
treated on some time ago — the question of your fixing 
yourself in a warmer spot than where you are. Liverpool 
is not in point of latitude what one would fix on for a 
native of Spain peculiarly sensitive to cold, but I am led 
to believe it is a cold and damp atmosphere, even for its 
latitude. And it does seem to me you have suffered from 
*it much that you might have had a chance of avoiding in 
Devon or Cornwall. Only do not wait to form any plans 
till the winter is just at hand, but think of it while the 
warm weather has some time to last. 

6 And surely I need not say the trifling expense attend- 
ing a removal, if otherwise desirable, is not worth a 
thought.' 

At this time the Archbishop was also much engaged in 
an earnest endeavour to do away with the oaths adminis- 
tered by him, as Chancellor of the Order of St Patrick, to 
those who were installed. 

His petition to the Queen ! will show his views in de- 
siring this change, better than any explanation could do ; 
and the letters which follow, to his chaplain and friend 
Dr. Dickinson, and to Earl (then Lord John) Eusseli, will 
further elucidate them : — 

1 Post, p. 137. 



128 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1837 

To Dr. Dickinson. 

1 LeamiDgton : August 10, 1837. 

' My dear D., — I send by the Castle to-day the 7th 
lesson. You ought to have had the two preceding on 
Sunday, through the Irish Office, London, to which write, 
if not arrived. The enclosure reached London on Friday. 

'I am very well satisfied about the oath. It is just in 
that way that the penal laws, test acts, ccc, were gradually 
got rid of. 

'Does Sir W. B. mean that " quis separabit " relates to 
the legislative union, which was not the law at the time 
when the Order was founded? or to the non-deprival of 
the King of any part of his dominions ? In that case the 
oath of allegiance affords the requisite security in a more 
distinct form. Or if any further oath is needed, it should 
be taken by all Her Majesty's subjects. It is not merely 
the Knights of St. Patrick (thank Heaven !) who are bound 
to maintain the royal rights, or else they would be in a 
bad way. 

•Ever vours affectionately, 

1 E. W. 

'N. B. — I myself am ever ready to vote for abolishing 
superfluous oaths, and this alone would oblige me not to 
lay myself open to the charge of continuing contentedly 
to administer any without asking to be relieved.' 

To the Lord John Russell. 

'Dublin: August 28, 1837. 

'My dear Lord, — I am just arrived, and lose no time 
in acknowledging the favour of your lordship's letter, 
apprising me of Her Majesty's gracious compliance with 
my application, in reference to the oaths administered to 
the Knights of St. Patrick. 

s I wish your lordship to convey to Her Majesty, if you 
should see any occasion on which it would be suitable, the 
expression of my sincere gratitude for the condescending 
readiness with which my request has been listened to. 



Mt. 60] LETTER TO LORD RUSSELL OX OATHS. 129 

' It is a source of additional gratification to me that the 
relief afforded has come not in the shape of a special 
dispensation to myself individually (which is all that I 
could myself presume to apply for), but in a mode which 
seems more distinctly to recognise the reasonableness of 
the principle by which I have been actuated. 

' I have long since been accustomed, at Oxford, to lend 
my aid to those who have been labouring — and ultimately 
with considerable success — to get rid of the multitude of 
needless academical oaths. The ill-effects of these on the 
minds of the members of the University and on the whole 
character of academical bodies, I have for many years had 
ample opportunities of observing. I shall always be pre- 
pared to advocate in Parliament a corresponding course ; 
but in so doing I might have been justly charged with 
inconsistency if I came forward to propose legislative 
measures for diminishing superfluous oaths, while at the 
same time I used no endeavours for diminishing those 
which could be dispensed with without any application to 
Parliament, and in which I was myself a party con- 
cerned.' .... 

The following jeu cV esprit — a letter composed of a string 
of proverbs — will be amusing to many, and illustrate his 
remarkable and characteristic love of, and extensive 
acquaintance with, these short and pithy sayings. He 
was fond of collecting and collating similar ones in dif- 
ferent languages, and comparing their various peculiarities. 
The ' Proverb Copies,' which he published some years 
later, for the use of the National Schools, are highly 
characteristic of his mind in this respect. 

Letter from the Archbishop of Dublin to a Lady who 
requested his opinion on the present state of Ireland. 

'May 1837. 

' The occasion is now arrived when all who wish to 

deliver this country from its troubles and ward off its 

impending dangers ought to exert themselves, and, as the 

proverb says, " Take time by the forelock." We may regret 

K 



130 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1837 

that so many opportunities have been already lost ; but, 
as the proverb says, "The miller cannot grind with the 
water that is past." If we would not be worse than fools, 
whom, as the proverb says, " experience teaches/' we should 
consider howto avoid losing another opportunity, which may 
be the last, and then we shall repent it, since, as the proverb 
says, sf Bien perdu bien connu." Standing still and wait- 
ing never did any good, for, as the proverb says, " Though 
the sun stood still, time never did/' " To-morrow," as the 
proverb says, " comes never." It is in vain to wish that 
things were in a different state from what they are. " I 
never fared worse," as the proverb says, " than when I had 
a wish for my supper ; " and it is no less to talk of what 
we would do if the case were different, for, as the proverb 
says, " If my aunt had been a man she would have been 
my uncle," and "if the sky should fall," as says the 
proverb, " we should catch larks." It is idle to look for 
a change of Ministers, and hope great things from a dif- 
ferent party in power, for, as the proverb says, " To a 
leaky ship all winds are contrary ; " and it is more idle to 
waste our spirits in anger against another's fault, for, as 
the proverb says, " There are two kinds of things a man 
should never get angry at — what he cannot help, and 
what he can." A wise man will never be driven desperate, 
and, as the proverb says, " throw the horse away after the 
saddle." But if we do exert ourselves to help the Church 
and the nation, others who are now lost in apathy may 
follow the example, for, as the proverb says, " Two dry 
sticks will kindle a green one." This is much better than 
fretting ourselves with grief and indignation, since, as the 
proverb says, " What is the use of patience if we cannot 
find it when we want it ? " — " He who gives way to anger 
punishes himself for the fault of another." The state of 
things is now such as calls for a fundamental and perma- 
nent remedy that shall remove the cause of existing evils. 
To look merely for a palliation of each evil as it arrives is, 
as the proverb says, " To work at the pump and to leave the 
leak open." If we leave things alone we shall find them 
indeed, as the proverb says, "like sour ale in summer;" 
and to grudge any sacrifice, inconvenience, or trouble, for 



2£t. 50] AN EPISTOLARY STRING OF PROVERBS. 131 

a greater and more lasting advantage, is to be, as the 
proverb says, "Penny wise and pound foolish." "No 
pains no gains," as the proverb says, and again, as the 
proverb says, " If you will not take pains, pains will take 
you." "We had better," as the proverb says, "wear out 
shoes than sheets." We must not be merely satisfied with 
pleading rights which we cannot defend, when, as the 
proverb says, "Might overcomes right." "No man can 
live on an income of which he gets," as the proverb says, 
" no pence in the pound." Besides, we should remember 
that, as the proverb says, " He buys honey too dear who licks 
it off thorns." It is indeed not to be wondered at that 
those who have suffered much should easily be alarmed, 
and always, as the proverb says, " misgive that thej may not 
mistake." But they should guard against imaginary 
dangers, as "The scalded cat," says the proverb, "fears 
cold water," and " He that is bitten by a serpent," as the 
proverb says, " is afraid of a rope." But, as the proverb 
says, " To run away is to run a risk." I do not mean that 
anything can be proposed which is not open to. objection. 
" A fool," as the proverb says, " can easily find faults 
which a wise man cannot easily mend." But the question 
is to find out what course is open to the least objection, 
for we should remember, as the proverb s&jre, " Half a loaf 
is better than no bread," and again, as the proverb says, 
"A man with a wooden leg goes the better for it." We 
must not seek for the best thing we could imagine, but for 
the best that is practicable, and, as the proverb says, 
" Drive the nail that will go." " If we cannot alter the 
wind," as the proverb says, "we must turn the mill sails." 
We have found by experience what can be expected from 
those who express great regard for us. Many of them 
are, as the proverb says, " Grood friends at a sneeze ; one 
can get nothing but God bless you ! " and some of them 
have given us good reason to say, according to the proverb, 
" Save me from my friends — I care not for my enemies." 
Some of them are, as the proverb says, "As honest as any 
man in the cards when the kings are out." It is time, 
therefore, that we look with less distrust towards those 

K 2 



132 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [1837 

who do not make such high professions, for, as the proverb 
says, " An ass that will carry me is better than a horse 
that will throw me," and again, as the proverb says, 
" Better an ass that speaks right than a prophet that 
speaks wrong." And if we will not learn this in time, we 
shall find, as the proverb says, " As we brew so must we 
bake." But though all this, to me. seems very much to 
the purpose, you will, perhaps, think it tedious and vapid, 
because, as the proverb says, u Wise men make proverbs, 
and fools repeat them." Bemember, however, that, as the 
proverb says, u Though fools learn nothing from wise men, 
wise men learn much from fools." 

It was in this year (1837) that Dr. Whately's special 
efforts for the abolition of transportation, in connection 
with Sir William Molesworth's Committee of Enquiry, were 
commenced. This committee had sprung from one formed 
in 1835, for the purpose of examining into the state of the 
colonies, and clearing them from abuses. The Archbishop 
of Dublin's interest in the subject being well known, his 
co-operation was earnestly sought. His views and opinions 
on many subjects differed widely from those of several of 
the leading members of this committee, but he always felt 
it right to unite in the furtherance of a common object 
with any who would work with him, however widely their 
opinions might differ on other points. His brother-in-law, 
the Eev. Henry Bishop, was examined in this year before 
the committee, and in the following year the Archbishop's 
letter to him was published in the Minutes of Evidence of 
the Select Committee on Transportation. 

It was about this period also that the movement at 
Oxford which commenced with the violent opposition to 
Dr. Hampden's appointment as Bampton Lecturer, in 
1834, and subsequently became identified with what is 
now called ' Tractarianism,' was in full force. Some re- 
marks which the Archbishop frequently made in conver- 
sation, respecting this movement, will explain, better than 
any notices by another would, the manner in which he 
viewed this celebrated movement : — 



Mr. 50] TABLE TALK: ON TRACTARIANISM. 133 



Table Talk. — On Tractarianism. 

* " The Pastoral Epistle " (by Dr. Dickinson) was reviled 
as unjust, and derided as absurd, for pointing out and 
foretelling just what afterwards came to pass ; and yet, 
what is still stranger, we are looked down upon even now 
as only half enlightened, by people who congratulate 
themselves on not having gone the whole length of the 
Tracts — only the first two volumes, which are the very 
ones from which he drew his prophecy ; and these gifted 
individuals, who could not see their tendency even when 
pointed out, nor understand the grounds of the prophecy 
even after it is fulfilled, hug themselves with the thought 
that they never cultivated stinging- nettles, only the nettle- 
roots. 

' He perceived, with me, that the Hampden persecution 
was the first outbreak of Tractism, and its success the 
great strengthener of the party. The combustibles were 
ready indeed, and some other spark, if not that, would 
have kindled them ; but the support the party received at 
the time of that persecution, from those who did not really 
belong to them, but opposed Hampden from political or 
other motives, gave them a great lift. 

4 In Hampden's case, it must be owned I did not antici- 
pate any outbreak so monstrous as did ensue, and, what 
is more, if I had remained head of Alban Hall it would 
never have taken place. This is quite certain, for my 
successor was one of the most violent of the persecutors, 
and the measure passed the Board of Heads by one vote. 
But most of my Oxford friends have assured me that the 
thing would not even have been attempted; that those 
disposed to it would have shrank from encountering the 
exposure they would have had to expect at the Hebdo- 
madal Board ; and that those who were led away would 
have found the better suggestions of their minds fortified. 

' It is thus that, as many of my friends assure me, I 
exercised a considerable influence at Oxford — not great on 
any one individual, but a little on a great number. Cer- 
tain it is, at least, whether accidentally or not, that Oxford 



134 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1837 

is a widely different place, and has long been so, from what 
it was while I resided there. There have been, perhaps, 
other persecutions as unjust and as cruel (none more so if 
we take into account the times and circumstances of each ; 
for burning of heretics is unsuited to the present age, and 
moreover was not in the power of the Hampden perse- 
cutors; they did all that they could and dared, and so did 
Bonner), but for impudence I never knew the like. To 
rind out, three years after the Bampton Lectures had been 
delivered, and two years after they had been published, 
that they were dangerously heterodox, though they had 
passed at the time not only unanswered, but with high 
applause ! There never was a more lame and palpably 
false pretence so shamefully brought forward. 

' I used often to remark, while it was going on, that the 
instances continually displayed in it of combined folly, 
cruelty, and baseness were startling even to one w T ho, like 
me, had not anticipated much greatness or goodness from 
human nature. But there is no telling, when a pond 
seems clear, how much mud there may be at the bottom 
till you stir it up.' 

The following letter shows his lively interest in plans 
of colonisation : — 

To N. Senior, Esq. 

'Dublin: November 8, 1837 (Saturday night). 

' Hinds has written to me, and sent me a book about 
a proposed colonisation of New Zealand, and I think he 
either had applied or meant to apply to you. Pray take 
an opportunity of asking Stephen l whether he has heard 
of the plan, which I think he must, from Lieutenant 
Gray. 

' The country certainly seems to have many advantages ; 

1 Under-Secretary for the Colonies. Several publications appeared, in 
this and the following years, respecting that plan of colonisation which was 
ultimately carried into partial execution by the Xew Zealand Company, 
established in 1841. 



Mt. 50] IRISH OUTDOOR RELIEF BILL. 135 

and as for the act of colonising, if anything is to be learnt 
from past errors, we have no want of instructions. 

6 By-the-bye, what a pity it is, and yet the evil is un- 
avoidable, that in so many cases (as that in the suppressed 
evidence) the public are led to false results by the sup- 
pressio veri, &c. The only thing to be done is to give a 
very strong declaration of the horrible character of what 
is suppressed. But this is very insufficient, when on 
the one side you have " details," and on the other merely 
" totum." The horrors of one campaign — of one capture 
of a city, if detailed, would create such a horror of war as 
nothing else could, and such as the reality justifies. This 
cannot be done. But, then, the worst of it is, all the 
brilliant parts of the war are discussed — the skill and 
valour displayed, the enterprise and excitement, every- 
thing that can render war attractive ; we have a full dis- 
play, as it were, of the beautiful head and bosom of 
Milton's " Sin," while a decent veil is thrown over the 
monsters that spring from her waist. It is a pity that 
we should thus whiten the sepulchre ! If I had received 
your letter in time to-day, I would have answered it by 
return, that you might have had something to show Lord 
Lansdowne. I hope you showed him the letter to Bo- 
wood. You do not say what instructions Sir G. Gripps 
takes out to New South Wales.' 

The contemplated introduction of the Irish Poor-law 
now occupied the Archbishop's mind most painfully. All 
his efforts to bring English legislators to understand the 
true state of the case in Ireland, according to his view of 
it, were unavailing. 

tf Those with whom I attempted to argue on the sub- 
ject,' he would remark, ' used to say that " something must 
be done for Ireland," and something, therefore, be it good 

or bad, they resolved should be done. remarked 

to me, when the Outdoor Eelief Bill was passing, that the 
feeling of the English was a mixture of revenge, compas- 
sion, and self-love. They pitied the suffering poor of 
Ireland; they had a fierce resentment against Irish land- 



136 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1837 

lords, whom they hastily judged to be the sole authors of 
those sufferings; and they dreaded calls on their own 
purse. When men decide and act under the strong in- 
fluence of passion, especially three passions at once, they 
are usually not very wise in their measures. 

6 It was much like Swift's recommendation,' he would 
add, e to the lady's-maid, when sent to open a drawer or 
box, and unable to find the right key ; she is to force one 
of them into the lock, and wrench till she either opens the 
drawer or breaks the key : u for your mistress will think 
you a fool if you come back and have done nothing!" 
And such a mistress did the Commissioners find the British 
public' 

The recommendations of the Archbishop and his col- 
leagues were — to take, at all events, no step of irretriev- 
able risk ; to proceed gradually, and be content rather to 
leave some evils unremedied for the present, than produce 
other and greater ones by rashness ; and to begin, at least, 
by conferring such benefits, however small, as they could 
be reasonably sure would be such — as institutions for the 
blind, deaf and dumb, &c. But no : ' something must be 
done for Ireland,' and 6 there is no making it tvorse than it 
is,' were the cry of England; and the Archbishop fre- 
quently observed, that many in England were really under 
the impression that it would be desirable to take such 
measures as might prevent the periodical immigration of 
Irish labourers to England for the harvest-work, Ho take 
the bread out of the mouths of the English labourers,' and 
' to carry away with them English money into Ireland ' — 
as if it were not plain that if the work they did were not 
worth more than that money, it would not be worth any 
one's while to employ them. 

The following petition to the Queen is on a subject 
mentioned before, that of the oaths administered by the 
Chancellor of the Order of St. Patrick :- - 



.Et. 50] PETITION TO THE QUEEN OX OATHS. 137 

' To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. 

6 May it please your Majesty, 

'I presume to approach your Majesty, in a 
strong hope that the conscientious scruples of any of your 
Majesty's subjects will be considered not undeserving of 
your royal notice, and that your Majesty's favour will be 
graciously extended to the relief of any one of them from 
whatever may be felt as a grievance, where such relief can 
be afforded with do detriment or inconvenience to others. 

6 The case which I beg permission humbly to submit to 
your Majesty's consideration, is the following: — 

' As Archbishop of Dublin, I am officially Chancellor of 
the most illustrious Order of St. Patrick, and in that 
capacity am called on to administer, from time to time, 
the oaths to those created knights. 

' This oath (of which I enclose a copy) is merely a 
matter of form, and not intended or felt as imposing any 
restriction or duty which the candidate might have been 
likely otherwise to neglect. It is, in fact, merely a part 
of the ceremonial, designed for the increase of the antique 
splendour and dignity of the order, and of all that is con- 
nected with it. 

c Now, the scruple I feel in respect of oaths of this kind 
turns on this very circumstance. It seems to be admitted 
by most Christians that oaths are then only justifiable, and 
exempt from the charge of profaneness, when called for 
by necessity, and (as the 39th Article of the Church ex- 
presses it) "in a cause of faith and charity," and that all 
others must come under the description (in the same 
Article) of "vain and rash swearing." 

' I have not only subscribed that Article according to 
the above interpretation, but, in common with the rest of 
the clergy, I have been accustomed thus to explain and 
inculcate the duty which it appears to me to convey, and 
which I conceive to be also implied in the proclamations 
issued by your Majesty and your illustrious predecessors. 
The thoughtless and unpremeditated manner in which 
some persons introduce the most Holy Name in familiar 



138 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1837-8 

conversation, however insufficient as an excuse, is at least 
no aggravation of their fault, as compared with a de- 
liberate use of that Name uncalled for by any important 
object. 

' My humble request, therefore, to your Majesty is, that 
by virtue of the supreme authority unquestionably vested 
in the Sovereign of the Order, your Majesty may be 
pleased to dispense with the oath above referred to. 

'I beg leave to submit that a similar dispensing power 
has been exercised from time to time in matters more 
important in reference to the institution, as being more 
calculated to strike the public eye, and adding to the 
solemn splendour of the ceremonial — such as the proces- 
sion to St. Patrick's Cathedral, and occasionally even the 
wearing of the mantle at the time of investiture. 

' It has appeared to me that the occasion most suitable 
for laying before your Majesty such an application as this, 
and the least inconvenient for the disco ntinuance 9 should 
your Majesty deem it advisable, of an ancient practice, is 
at the auspicious commencement of a, new reign, before 
any candidate has been actually admitted of the order. 

'Permit me to subscribe myself, with the most profound 
respect, Madam, your Majesty's most devoted and most 
dutiful subject, 

' Richard Dublin.' 



JEt. 51] SUGGESTIONS ON LONDON UNIVERSITY. 139 



CHAPTER VI. 

1838—1839. 

Letter to Dr. Arnold on the London University — Revisits Oxford — Letter 
to Mr. Senior — Letters to Rev. Baden Powell on his work ' Tradition 
Unveiled' — Letter to Rev. Dr. Dickinson — Starts on a Continental tour — 
Visits the field of Waterloo — Conversation with the King of the Belgians 
— Letter to Dr. Dickinson on Switzerland and Italy — Makes the acquain- 
tance of M. Sismondi — Letter to Mr. Senior on 'Travelling' — Disap- 
pointed at the failure of his scheme for a new Divinity College — Mis- 
representations of the scheme — Returns to Dublin — Letters to Mr. Senior 
on various subjects — Urged by his friends to attend Parliament — Letter 
to Miss Crabtree — Madame Pabre translates the 'Lessons on the 
Evidences of Christianity ' — Letter to M. Pabre on the translation. 

The first letter of this year which comes before us is in 
answer to some questions of Dr. Arnold, 1 on the subject of 
the then newly- founded London University : — 

'Dublin: January 5, 1838. 

c My dear Arnold, — The best way, perhaps, in which I 
can throw light on the questions you refer to me, will be 
by adverting to some matters which have come under my 
own experience, especially when that experience has been 
counter to my previous expectations. 

' Six years ago, or more, I should have been rather in- 
clined to doubt the possibility of having any instruction 
or any examinations in Christian Scriptures, that all 
various denominations might peaceably partake of. 

6 When Lord Stanley formed the Education Board, he 
had no such thought. And when first Mr. Carlisle pro- 
posed drawing up Scripture Extracts, I partook of the 
same expectations with Bishop Phillpotts, that no selections 

1 It is the only letter to Dr. Arnold which has been preserved. 



140 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1838 

could be introduced, with the concurrence of all parties, 
such as should be of any utility. But I was as willing to 
have the experiment tried as he was anxious to prevent it, 
and as much rejoiced as he was mortified and provoked 
at the unexpected success. I do not even now think my 
apprehensions groundless. The obstacles were incom- 
parably greater than those to any analogous plan in 
England. 1 

6 The Roman Catholics do not, like the Dissenters, use 
the same version of the Bible as the Churchmen; they do 
not permit the free and indiscriminate use of Scripture : 
they do not make Scripture their sole standard of faith : 
they do not appeal to the authorised version, or the Greek 
original, as their standard of Scripture, but to the Vulgate ; 
and they had been recently engaged in controversies with 
the Kildare Place Society on those very questions. More- 
over, large and fierce mutual persecutions had embittered 
the two parties against each other; and most of the 
Protestant clergy and many of the laity made it their 
study to excite dissensions relative to our schools. And 
lastly, a large proportion of the priests, being themselves 
very slightly acquainted with Scripture, could not be ex- 
pected to look with a favourable eye on the study of any 
part of it by their flocks. My apprehensions therefore 
were, I still think, quite reasonable. The result, however, 
was complete success. All the effort to raise jealousy in 
reference to the Scripture Extracts have, within the schools 
themselves, totally failed. 

c They are read with delight and profit by almost all the 
children ; and I and other Protestants, as Bishop Stanley 
knows, have examined the children of all denominations, 
without knowing to which each child belonged, raising no 
jealousy, and finding them better taught in Scripture than 
most gentlefolks' children. Of course Mr. Spring-Bice 
will remark, when this is laid before him (which he already 

1 In connection with this subject, it may be observed that it was in 1837 
that the Archbishop produced the celebrate! tract, * Easy Lessons on Chris- 
tian Evidences,' afterwards admitted into the mixed schools by Dr. Murray, 
and finally objected to by Dr. Cullen in 1853. 



^Et. 51] SUGGESTIONS OX LONDON UNIVERSITY. 141 



i 



knows), that, first, I was prepared to go on with the system, 
even if no Scripture Extracts had been received ; and 
secondly, that the use of them is only recommended, not 
enforced. This is quite true ; and I am glad that in the 
few schools — they are but very few — where no Scripture is 
read, the children at least learn to read, write, and cipher. 

c And I would not scruple to have certificates made out, 
if any were required in such cases, that such-and-such a 
boy had been diligent and orderly, had read such-and-such 
books, and passed an examination in arithmetic. But I 
would not grant a certificate that the boy had gone through 
a course of education suitable to his station ; that would 
imply that I considered a knowledge of the very first out- 
lines of Christian History as improper or superfluous for 
a peasant. If any one said, "He is free to receive that 
knowledge from his priest," I should answer, "Very well: 
I do not declare that he has not received a competent 
education, or that he might not if he would ; but I cannot 
certify that he has. I can only certify, if you please, that 
I do not know to the contrary, and that he has been left 
to take his chance." Now, to a child brought up in our 
model school, or in one similar to it, I could grant a cer- 
tificate (analogous to a degree), stating that he had received 
a regular course of instruction, sufficient to qualify him 
to be generally a member of society in a Christian country, 
with reference to his station in life — not, indeed, instruc- 
tion in the peculiarities of any particular Church, or in 
the professional points of any particular trade, but in that 
which every one (of whatever sect, and of whatever occu- 
pation) ought to be acquainted with in common, in order 
to deserve the title of decently educated. 

'But had the plan gone no further than Lord Stanley 
at first proposed and expected, I should not have considered 
it as furnishing education, but only a portion of education ; 
and I should have been glad to furnish even a small part 
of that portion, if no more could have been admitted. If 
there had been a scruple against teaching anything beyond 
the alphabet, I should have been glad to have even that 
taught. 



142 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1838 

6 From what I have actually done and thought and 
seen, you may pretty well conjecture how I should be 
likely to act in respect of the London University. In the 
first place, I should point out, first, from the experience of 
a far, very far more difficult trial,, the perfect feasibility of 
having the historical books of the Bible as a portion of the 
studies and examinations ; and secondly, the importance 
of this as a portion of general education, on the ground 
that Christianity is the prevailing religious profession of 
the country. I should call for no signing of articles — no 
profession of faith ; but I should point out that in those 
portions of the empire where the Mahometan religion 
prevails, it is essential that those who are to reside among 
the Mussulmans and hold official situations should have 
some acquaintance with the Koran. 

' To say that a man can have gone through a course of 
liberal education in this country, totally ignorant of the 
outlines of Christian History, is to imply not merely that 
the Christian religion is untrue or bad, but that it is in- 
significant and unworthy of serious attention, except from 
those who have a fancy- for it — as is the case with the 
mythological antiquities of the Anglo-Saxons, or the 
dreams of astrology and alchemy. And if any one should 
say, " You need not doubt that the students do acquire 
this knowledge in other ways," I should say, " Very well ; 
I do not say to the contrary. I will certify, if you please, 
that they may, for aught I know, have gone through a 
suitable and complete course of education ; but I will not 
certify, by conferring anything in the nature of a degree, 
that they have done so, unless they shall have given proof 
before the University, as such, that they have." But if 
I was answered that the conductors of the University 
despaired of the possibility of conducting any examina- 
tions or lectures on the Greek Testament, so as to avoid 
jealousies and contests, I should consent to obtain what 
benefit we could — reckoning even half a loaf, or half a 
quarter of a loaf, better than no bread. But nothing- 
would ever induce me to call it a whole loaf. 

' If objections are raised to examinations in History — 



J£t. 51] SUGGESTIONS OX LONDON UNIVERSITY. 143 

and it would be very easy so to conduct these, or so to re- 
present the conduct of them, as to raise religious objections 
and jealousies — and if similar scruples extended to every- 
thing except Euclid and Chemistry, I should say, "Then let 
Euclid and Chemistry be taught, and let a student have a 
certificate of having attended these lectures and passed an 
examination in them; but let not this certificate be con- 
founded with a degree, or with anything certifying that 
the student had gone through what was, in the opinion of 
the Governors of the Institution, a sufficient course of 
liberal instruction." For if such a certificate related partlv 
to instruction, supposed to have been received at home, 
which the Governors of the Institution did conceive to be 
essential, but which they did not themselves either supplv 
or ascertain, then they might inwardly believe, but would 
have no right to certify publicly, the completeness of the 
education; if, again, they did reckon the course of in- 
struction given within the Institution to be complete, thev 
would be right in certifying that they thought so ; but I 
should have no right to express a concurrence in their 
views. Many, I believe, would be scandalised at the 
ground on which I contend for a knowledge of Christian 
History as an essential part of a course of liberal education 
— viz., not the ground of its truth, but of its important 
place in society. But I am taking the only ground on 
which I conceive it can be with justice in any manner 
required. It has been the common practice for ages, in 
most States of Christendom, to require a profession of 
belief, but not knowledge. A man was required to profess 
himself a Christian Trinitarian — an Anti-Transubstan- 
tiationist — a Nicean, &c. ; but he might, if he pleased, 
remain ignorant whether Christ came before or after 
Mahomet — was born in Asia or Europe — was descended 
from David or from Nebuchadnezzar. My views are quite 
the reverse of these; and, whether right or wrong, they 
are most deliberate and well weighed. 

6 Ever yours affectionately, 

' K. Whatelt.' 



144 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1838 

Part of the autumn of this year (1838) was spent by the 
family at Oxford. It was the last time that Dr. Whately 
made any considerable stay in this the scene of his earliest 
labours and happiest years. A change had come over the 
old city, which made it, for him, very different from the 
6 Alma Mater ' of his early days. The band of old friends 
were scattered, and among those who remained, contro- 
versy had brought painful disunion. A blight seemed 
even to have fallen on the brilliant literary reputation of 
Oriel; and to him, regarding the whole subject as he did, 
Oxford was now a place full of very painful associations. 
When approaching it he has often said, ' I feel as if I were 
beholding not only the dead face of a dear friend, but his 
mouldering and decaying corpse.' 

At this time, however, it was ' long vacation,' and the 
renewed recollections of the past were less vivid. And a 
sister-in-law, much beloved by him, having now, by her 
marriage with his old friend Professor Powell, become 
fixed at Oxford, gave the place a more cheering aspect in 
his eyes. His stay in Oxford this year naturally drew his 
attention much to the controversy still raging, on the 
subject of Dr. Hampden's lectures. The following letter 
was written to Mr. Senior on his way home : — 

'Kugby: October 10, 1838. 

'My dear Senior, — Here we are on our return home. 
We have been two months in England, for J.'s health, who 
is better, though far from stout. We were most of the 
time at Oxford. Not many there, of course, in September, 
but the Powells were the chief attraction. 

'I very much doubt between Oxford and Cambridge 
for my boy. Oxford, which I should otherwise prefer, 
on many accounts, has, at present, two-thirds of the steady 
reading men Eabbinists, i.e. Puseyites. 

' I am led to expect to find, on my return, the Educa- 
tion Board all at sixes and sevens, and shall probably have 

to resign. I know no particulars, but I hear that 

was there in his late visit to Ireland, and if he did not 
meddle, I can only say it will have been the only matter 



Mr. 52] LETTER TO BADEN POWELL OX TRADITION. 145 

I know of in which he has not meddled. " Oh, let me 
play the lion ! " 

1 O'Connel, you may have heard, has recommenced 
agitation, having got up an association of " Precursors/' 
commonly called, for shortness, carsers. 

6 I think the town of Oxford seems improved in some 

respects. The defeat of 's attempt to keep his men 

from Hampden's lectures is felt as a sore defeat, and there 
is a talk about repealing the persecuting statute ; and the 

heads who last year appointed , apparently for the 

express purpose of crying up tradition (which he did so 
extravagantly that he does not venture to publish his 
B amp ton lectures), have elected for next year Congreve, 
expressly to preach on the other side. 

' I may bring home any memoranda of what you learn 
respecting education and educational books. I do not 
mean to leave the Board (if leave it I must) in hostility, 
but to continue avowed advocate of the system. See also 
what you can about prisons and secondary punishments. 
Sir William Molesworth is still labouring in the cause, 
and public attention is so far beginning to be roused that 
a provincial paper lately published the whole of my written 
evidence, sent in the form of a letter, last session.' 

The first letter in 1839 we shall give, is to the Eev. 
Baden Powell, then engaged on his work, c Tradition Un- 
veiled : ' — 

¥ 

; ]\iareli 1839. 

' My dear Powell, — Provost S., a man of great acute- 
ness, remarked that you seemed to place tradition too 
low. Have we not, he said, 1st, the Sacred Scriptures by 
tradition; 2ndly, the inspiration of them by tradition; 
3rdly, many practices and many interpretations from tra- 
dition ? 

6 The first I admitted ; remarking, however, that if a 
letter from a friend was brought me by a messenger of a 
tolerably fair character, intellectual and moral, who also 
reported to me (at first, second, or third hand) my friend's 

L 



146 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1339 

oral remarks on the same subject, I should attach very 
different degrees of weight to the letter and to the report. 
I might think the man incapable of forging the letter, 
and yet might suspect, either that he had partially mis- 
understood the conversation, or that the intermediate re- 
porters had, or that it was coloured by their prepossessions ; 
or, lastly, that my friend, by not inserting so-and-so in 
his letter, had designed it only for those he was speaking 
to, or had meant it to be left at my discretion, not as a 
direction to be insisted on, like his written directions. 
Hereupon it was remarked that the traclitionists (includ- 
ing the Eomanists) may urge that it is a mockery to talk 
of the infallible certainty of the inspired Sacred Scrip- 
tures, if we are to exercise our own confessedly fallible 
judgment in deciding the question as to their authenticity ; 
for since no chain can be stronger than its weakest link, 
if we rest our religious belief on the Sacred Scriptures, 
and refer to tradition for the assumption that they are the 
Sacred Scriptures, our belief must rest, ultimately, on 
tradition — a tradition, indeed, which we think more worthy 
of credit than some which the Eomanists hold, but which 
still we admit only on the decision of our own fallible 
judgment as to the evidence by w^hich it is supported. 

6 All this I admit, and more. Our belief in any point for 
which we refer to Scripture, must rest on the conviction 
of our own judgment, not only, 1st, as to the evidence for 
the safe and unaltered transmission (tradition, if any one 
chooses to call it so) of the books ; but also, 2ndly, as to 
the evidence for the authors of these books having been 
really divinely commissioned; and again, 3rdly, as to the 
evidence for the sense of the passage referred to, being- 
such as we understand it in. Hence, I observed, our cer- 
tainty is only a hypothetical certainty, dependent on the 
correctness of our judgment on every one of these three 
points. The weakness of the chain, as far as fallibility is 
to be called weakness, is in three of the links, and not 
merely in one. And the result also I fully admit — viz., 
that I am fallible, which I should not be if I were infallibly 
certain of infallibly following an infallible guide. 



Mr. 52] LETTER TO BADEN POWELL OX TRADITION. 147 

' But if another person were to take my word implicitly 
(or that of Irenoeus or Jerome, or any other bishop, ancient 
or modern) for the conclusion I had thus drawn, taking 
the word of somebody else for its being my conclusion, this 
would evidently be only adding a fourth doubtful link to 
the chain. His choosing to entertain no doubt as to this 
being my opinion, and as to the correctness of my opinion, 
would leave him, indeed, in a state of very comfortable 
certainty, but would not afford any additional ground for 
certainty. 

6 But the vulgar are deceived sometimes into rejecting 
at once all religion, on the ground that infallible certainty 
cannot be obtained (forgetting that, by their own rule, 
they ought to make out an infallible certainty of its being 
false); sometimes into resolving that they will reject all 
doubt; sometimes into preferring some system which has 
only one weak link in the - chain, to that which has several 
— leaving out of the account the degree of weakness. 

6 Once grant that Swedenborg, or Southcote, or the Pope, 
is Grod's vicegerent or ambassador, and there need not be 
a shadow of doubt as to anything else. 

6 Secondly, the tradition of the inspiration of the Sacred 
Scriptures I admitted to exist, but denied it to be decisive, 
though it may be confirmatory. But if you admit, e.g., 
Paul's epistles to be genuine and not the work of a fool, 
a madman, or an impostor, he must have been inspired, 
because he says so. 

' As for the third point, I admit — and so, I said, I con- 
ceived you to do — the tradition of various ordinances, &c. ; 
which are therefore to be considered with respect, and not 
lightly rejected, but yet not put on a par with revelation. 
The proof is less strong of their being, 1st, really apos- 
tolical; and 2ndly, supposing they were, of their being 
meant by the Apostles to be of universal obligation. 

' The Provost seemed to acquiesce in what I said. I do 
not find that others were struck with the objections he 
made, but it may be worth your while to turn it in your 
mind. 

4 Dr. Wilson was mightily pleased with my calling the 

l2 



148 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP TTHATELY. [1839 

traditionals the " Children of the Mist," The title of 
" Veiled Prophets" he thought a little too severe.' 

To the same. 

' I should like you to explain and modify some of your 
positions in that volume. I agree with you, that to as- 
sume the truth of the Bible as a basis for natural theo- 
logy is to argue in a- circle ; but I cannot admit that we 
either require or can establish a complete demonstration 
of the being and attributes of a Deity, before we can 
proceed to enquire whether there be a revelation. (I 
allude especially to a note in which you, justly, censure 
those who are for entering on the study of Natural Theo- 
logy with the Bible in their hand — like beginning Euclid 
with Newton's Principia for a guide.) It is enough if 
you can establish it as a strong probability that there may 
be a (rod, and that not necessarily such as we call God — 
the sole Author of all things; but simply an unseen in- 
telligent Being, exercising power over this world. And 
when it is but admitted that there may be such a Being, 
there is no absurdity in proceeding to enquire what proofs 
there are of His having directly communicated with man. 
When this is established, we may justly infer, from such 
His revelations, His having probably done so-and-so, and 
being so-and-so ; of which again we may find confirmation 
by inspecting more closely the other volume — the created 
universe. Is not such the historical state of the case ? 
The first Christian preachers went about among the 
heathen, who were all, in a certain sense, atheists, i.e. not 
believers in an Eternal Creator, but worshippers of certain 
Osoi who were superhuman, immortal (though not eternal), 
intelligent, and powerful beings. But the Apostles taught 
them, you will say, that we are all the creatures of the 
one God. True ; but how did they prove this ? By re- 
ference to the miracles which Christ wrought and enabled 
His followers to work, which proved that He was a 
messenger from the One who had control over Nature, and 
was therefore to be believed when He called Himself the 
Author and Governor of Nature. 



^t. 52] STARTS OX A CONTINENTAL TOUE. 149 

c And even now, when we teach children and clowns 
that God is their Maker, they are usually led on to the 
study of sacred Scripture before they are even mentally 
capable of taking in natural theology as an independently- 
proved basis for ulterior reasonings. True, you will per- 
haps reply, they take our word in the first instance, both 
for natural and for revealed religion ; and afterwards, if 
properly trained, they go over the same ground again, 
and verify the course of argument. They do ; but in 
this process of verification it is not necessary that they 
should have completed the proof of the being and attri- 
butes of God from the contemplation of nature, before 
they begin upon the evidences of revelation. Having 
fairly satisfied themselves that there is no contradiction 
or impossibility in conceiving a great Spirit to exist, and 
to reveal Himself to man, they may fairly proceed to 
examine the evidences of some such Being having done 
so ; and when satisfied that He had, they may next enquire 
what He has taught us respecting Himself. 

' It was, perhaps, some vague and confused idea of this 
procedure (a procedure which does not appear to me at 
all illogical) that was in the mind of those who speak of 
studying Nature with the aid of the Bible.' 

The following letter to Dr. Dickinson, written when he 
was starting for the Continent with his family, is charac- 
teristic in reference to his favourite old pursuits in Natural 
History : — 

To Dr. Dickinson. 

'Bangor: May 1839. 

6 My dear D., — Passage rather rough, though not tedious. 
All very sick, including myself. Starting at that time in 
the morning suits me ill. The " Sun," which we have 
seen, states positively that Peel has been looked at and 
sent back, and Lord Melbourne summoned again. Is 
Peel manoeuvring to keep among the bowlers ? which he 
plainly likes better than batting. is mentioned as 



350 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1839 

among the party at Peel's; and like a rat without a -tail, 

I'll do, I'll do 

6 Pray leave word at the Palace of our safety. When 
you are fixed at Killiney, remember to ask Mrs. Coleman 
for your ducklings, that is, if your bairns like them. 
When I was of their age I had two, which I used to carry 
about the garden on the palm of my hand, and hold them 
to any bough that had caterpillars on it. They travelled 
as quietly as passengers on the top of a coach.' 

The continental journey, alluded to in some of these 
letters, took place in May of this year, on account of the 
health of one of his family. Where the welfare of others, 
and especially his childen, was concerned, he spared no 
effort ; but, as has been observed, travelling afforded him 
in general but little pleasure. The ordinary objects of 
sightseers in continental towris had little or no charm for 
him. He visited the field of Waterloo, and during a stay 
of some days at Brussels became acquainted with several 
distinguished literary and political characters, both among 
Belgians, and in the circle of eminent Italian exiles who 
were then residing in that city. He dined with the King 
of the Belgians on this occasion, at his palace at Lacken. 
Walking next morning in the park with his brother-in-law, 
he observed, 'I rather startled his Majesty by an observa- 
tion I made to him — viz., that he set a bad example to 
the States of Europe.' 

' No wonder,' replied his companion ; ' but how did you 
justify the remark ? ' 

'I added,' he resumed, 'that his Majesty afforded the 
best specimen possible of the value of an elective mon- 
archy.' 

From Brussels the party proceeded by the Eliine, Frank- 
fort, Heidelberg, and Baden, to Switzerland. At Frankfort, 
where a few days were spent, Dr. Whately formed an 
acquaintance — it might almost be called a friendship, 
brief as their intercourse was — with the Syndic Sieveking 
of Hamburg, in whom he found one whose powers of mind, 
high cultivation, and enlarged views, were peculiarly fitted 



JEt. 52] HIS IMPRESSIONS OF SWITZERLAND, 151 

to appreciate his own, and in whose society he enjoyed an 
intercourse most congenial to him. The correspondence 
to which this meeting led was continued at intervals as 
long as the Syndic lived. 

The two letters which follow give, the one, his general 
impressions of what he saw of Switzerland and Italy ; the 
other, of travelling in general : — 

To the same. 

* Varenna, on Lake Como ; June 24, 1839. 

' My dear D. — 's attack at Zurich kept us there 

but a few days. Fortunately we found there a physician 
whom we both thought very well of. We had a severe 
day's journey on Friday, crossing the Spliigenpass, which 
was rather too much for her, but she is now recovering 
from it. Think of the amusement of pelting each other 
with snowballs on the 21st of June, at 6,500 feet eleva- 
tion. Ehododendrons in great beauty at the edge of the 
snow — no heath in the high parts, and hardly a bird to be 
seen. 

6 Here the weather is very hot ; several nightingales in 
full song, which is very late for them ; a garden full of 
orange trees ; but there is no other place to stir out except 
the dusty road skirting the lake. Mountains come down 
close to the water on all sides, which I don't like so well 
as a mixture of mountain and plain. The Alps, of course, 
beat everything in the British Isles, but the lake itself, 
though very beautiful, does not, in my mind, near equal 
Killarney : it wants the islands. The country is enclosed 
beyond the neighbourhood of Dublin. Nothing but narrow 
paths between vineyards and olive-yards. To-morrow we 
propose starting for Como, and 

6 [26 June, Milan.'] staying a few days, I was going to 
say, if found equal to descriptions ; but on arriving last 
night (by steamer) we found it so dull and close that we 
started this morning at eight for Milan, where we stay a 
day or two to get clothes washed, &c. &c, and because the 



152 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. .[1829 

children would not like to be so near a celebrated city 
without seeing it. I have ordered any letters that may 
arrive (I have had none) to be forwarded to the places on 
our route, which will be by Lago Maggiore to the Simplon 
and Geneva. 

' is decidedly better. The passage by steamer on 

the lake is just the thing for her. I am glad to be re- 
lieved from the everlasting valleys, Swiss and Italian, 
though this is a dead flat, and has no beauty but that of 
full cultivation. 

' I had no idea the ancient sculptors were so correct in 
their oxen. You recognise in the ox of this country ex- 
actly the peculiar face of their sculpture. 

6 We propose to start to-morrow for Baveno on Lago 
Maggiore. The cathedral is the most gigantic idolatrous 
temple I ever saw. I need not describe it, as books do 
that so much better. It is a pain to me to visit such 
places. The chief idol is the Virgin and Babe. I marvel 
at those Protestants who admire the devotion of Eoman 
Catholics, and their stepping in at any hour of any day to 
say their private prayers in the churches, which are always 
open. It is the very essence of their error, in making a 
temple of a Christian synagogue. I hope your book is 
going on well. If you do not repeat again and again that 
the main point is the double doctrine, and yet from the 
nature of the case the least prominent characteristic of the 
party, you will have said too little. I should almost be 
ioclined to use as a motto (at any rate introduce it some- 
where), " portaque emittit eburna." ' 

After a few days in Northern Italy, the party crossed 
the Simplon, and made a short stay at Geneva, where they 
made an acquaintance, not less interesting than their 
former ones, with the celebrated historian Sismondi and 
his accomplished wife, and at his house were introduced 
to several literary characters of note. 

The following extract from a letter to Mr. Senior shows 
his feelings with respect to travelling in general : — 



Mt. 52] HIS VIEWS OX TRAVELLING. US 

'Geneva: July 1839. 

f Travelling itself, or rather being from home, is to me 
very dull, for want of something to do. I have teen too 
long an actor, in very stirring parts, to be interested as a 
spectator. I have outlived the power of being amused, 
for above a day or two at a time, with the mere passive 
process of seeing sights. The thing is, I have been so 
long habituated to be among persons and institutions de- 
pendent on me for many important benefits, and with a 
view to whom I am daily taking measures, that I find it 
flat to be surrounded by mere objects which are nothing 
to me, nor I to them, and without any object to accom- 
plish. Considering how much I am usually overworked 
and too painfully interested, it might be expected that the 
most complete contrast would be the most refreshing ; and 
so it would be, but for two circumstances, — 1st, that the 
absence of employment is concentrated instead of being 
distributed through the year : to consume my year's allow- 
ance of salt or of wine in a month, would not only be no 
compensation for going without for the rest of the year, 
but would be far from refreshing : 2ndly, I have not a 
long vacation, as at Oxford, in which everything stands 
still till my return : my vessel is not laid up in port, but 
is not only still at sea while I have the rudder, but is 
assailed by fresh storms from that very cause ; for all my 
opponents (i. e. all violent partisans of all sides) watch 
their opportunity to plot as soon as my back is turned ; 

and though they never find D asleep on his post, they 

always try what they can do. 

'We hope to be in London the 27th instant. The 
prophecy of 31st May is not literally fulfilled, but I still 
think it likely it will be in substance. For Ireland, the 
Whigs make a bad government, and the Tories, I fear, a 
worse (from the want of confidence in their good inten- 
tions, and the experience of their yielding to threats) ; in 
England, probably, vice versa. I wish, but hardly dare 
hope, for a Government which should employ, without 
feelings of jealousy, men of superior talents as well as in- 



154 LIFE J &RCHB1SHO] W1IATELY. [183S 

v-_zz-w ;: trusting exclusively be 1 1 n-witted 

fools and uniespective boys,*' and mating zczz: :: .. p- ;.". : zis- 
ness a prim::" recommendation." 

While this lettei was: bein^ written, z niece z: intel- 
ligence was mill way U the --z:d" z which could 
not Bail be bring him deep disappointment and mortifi- 
cation. 

As Las been Tied, he had been long desirous of 
establishing a separate college ::: Divinity students, not 

in opposition in an ay tc Trinity iohege. bnt te srzmzby 

the need — acknowledged at that time y -eachnh persins 
in the Irish Church — :f a more systematic and hszzzzztive 
course ;-f theological trairnng than was practicable in a 
e >llege in which this was not the sole >bject 

That many leading members ;: Trinity i : liege miszcz- 
: i e h e n 1 r J the plan, and im ; g in ed that : : would interfere 
with the prorking :: the :lder institution, was. >erhaps, 
not :: be wondered at. though bo be regretted. 

As they were unwilling be have :: :_ connection with 
Trinity College, the Arehlishzi z;lz step* :: ~:z : ..:e :. 
charter independently of it. The funds "rir to be sup- 
plied from a portion :: the see pronerry. : _ - the zld 
palace at Tallagh was fixed :n as the site. The ] teen 
lettei was signed, commanding the bedrawnup 

and the Great Seal affixed the Archbishoj saw it after- 
wards at the 3astle ; and he went abroad ith the mc - 
distinct assurance that all was lone, and nothing remained 
:; complete the work but the mere forms :: engrossing 
and affixing the seal :; the zharter. As seen as he vr ; 

flie Continent an z reach — for in those days rail- 

is and electric telegraphs had not become sufficiently 
general tc admit :z that rapid : mmzmicarizn vrhieb is 
now practicable even — ith far more iistanz 1; :alitie= — zbr 
n= :»sed z: the scheme. : z. 1 r-ez. szme ~h; b: :'. 

^ared its friends, immediately availed themselves :: 
the opportunity be set zz : z an opposition, which proved 
a su scessful me. be t b is t Ian for the improved education 
>fthe slerew. .Remonstrances were twered in t. the new 



^Et. 52] HIS SCHEME OF A DIVINITY COLLEGE FAILS. 155 

Lord-Lieutenant, 1 full of misrepresentations of the whole 
scheme ; and he, not understanding probably the true state 
of the case, promised at once to stop the measure. 

It was while at Geneva that the Archbishop received 
the painful and mortifying tidings that the plan he had 
laboured, at the expense of personal sacrifices, to promote 
was dashed to the ground ; and this in a way which could 
not but awaken feelings of disgust as well as mortification 
at the manner in which the opposition had been conducted, 
and the want of straightforwardness and manly upright- 
ness shown by those who, if conscientiously opposed to the 
plan, might at least have remonstrated while its promoter 
was still on the spot, instead of waiting till his absence 
left them the power of working without his knowledge. 

The plan was never revived, but some good arose even 
after its ultimate defeat. Those who had been most 
strongly opposed to it, still felt that some efforts must be 
made to improve the education of the clergy. The tutors 
turned their attention to giving lectures on the Greek 
Testament; and from, this time a decided improvement 
was to be observed in the candidates who presented them- 
selves for examination. Thus the Archbishop's efforts, 
though in part failing, were not altogether fruitless as 
regarded the object he had in view. 

Early in September the Archbishop was again at his 
post ; and the first letter after his return shows the pecu- 
liar difficulties with which he had to contend : — 

' Kedesdale : September 11, 1S39. 

Q My dear Senior, — Yours only reached me yesterday. 
We came by Liverpool, — a very smooth passage; and 
having breakfasted on Monday morning at your house, we 
had rather an early breakfast here on the Tuesday. 

' I am going to reprint " Whately on Shakespeare/' and 
have cribbed some extracts from your review for an 
appendix. Dreadfully wet and sometimes stormy weather, 

1 Lord Ebrington (afterwards Lord Fortescne) succeeded Lord Mnl- 
grave in April 1839. 



156 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1839 

but it is said not to have been quite so bad in England. 
The harvest, however, must have suffered much. Potatoes 
a large crop, though not of good quality. Lord Lansdowne 
is said by the papers to have reached Frankfort, and I 
suppose has delivered my introduction to Siev eking. What 
think you of the changes in the Cabinet ? O'Connell has 
addressed a letter to the English people (clever), to exhort 
them to turn Roman Catholics. I don't feel certain of his 
motives. Is it to gain the credit of religious zeal ? or does 
he hope to strengthen his party by actual converts? — 
Burke on the Sublime has some very just observations on 
Tragedy. A well-written article in the " Edinburgh," I 
should think in the year '12 or '13, has still better, mostly 
borrowed (though without acknowledgment) from Burke, 
but improved, and admirably expressed. I forget whether 
it was in an article on Crabbe, or on what. 1 Beattie, in his 
essay on Composition, though far from satisfactory, has 
on the whole the best remarks in Comedy. In pointing 
out for Nassau 2 these books, which are open to every 
candidate to consult, I am doing nothing unfair. It 
would be otherwise if I gave him privately (supposing I 
were able) some valuable thoughts not accessible to others. 
But in truth the subject (or rather subjects) is very diffi- 
cult, and therefore ill-chosen.' 

Of the following letters, the one to Miss Crabtree is an 
answer to a question of hers, on a report spread that Dr. 
Arnold had become ' Puseyite ' or Tractarian ; the other 
concerns a translation made by Madame Fabre. wife of 
one of the principal pastors of Lausanne, of the ' Lessons 
on the Evidences of Christianity.' The Archbishop took 
a lively interest in the foreign translations of his works, 
and in many instances contributed a part or whole of the 
expense of the printing : — 

1 The review alluded to was one of Crabbe, by Lord Jeffrey, and will 
be found in bis collected works. 

2 Mr. ri. Senior, his friend's son, who was then writing for a prize at 
King's College. 



2Et. 52] FABBE'S TRANSLATION OF THE ; EVIDENCES. ' 157 

'November 9, 1839. 

6 My dear Miss Crabtree, — I bad thougbt there was no 
fabrication about Dr. Arnold (or indeed myself) so mon- 
strous as to raise any surprise. If they were to say he 
had turned Swedenborgian, or Mussulman, or (as one man 
said of me) an Antinomian- Armenian, I should not have 
wondered. But a Puseyite ! it is " beyond all shouting." 
Eead the article in the "Edinburgh Review," on Dr. 
Hampden and the Oxford malignants, which came out 
soon after the beginning of the Hampden persecution, 
and you will see pretty much what his views are of the 
Puseyites. He hardly dares to think (as in my case also) 
of sending a son to Oxford, for fear of being infected with 
this Protestant Popery. 

' In great haste, yours very truly, 

\ RlCHABD WHATELY. 

' Kindest regards to your whole party.' 

On the other subject, mentioned above, he writes thus to 
M. Fabre, the husband of his accomplished translator : — 

To Monsr. Fabre, Pasteur at Lausanne. 

'Dublin: December 12, 1839. 

6 Reverend Sir, — I address you in the only language I 
am master of, being certain that you, or at least your 
lady, will prefer good English to bad French. 

' It was with heartfelt gratitude to the Giver of ail good 
that I heard of the projected translation of the tract on 
Evidences. I am most anxious not only to diffuse as 
widely as possible religious knowledge and faith, but also 
to draw more closely the ties which ought to bind together 
Christians of all nations and languages, "as fellow-sub- 
jects of that eternal kingdom in which there is neither 
Jew nor Grreek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free." With 
this view, a daughter of mine had begun a translation of 
the tract into French and also into Italian, and has com- 
pleted nearly a third, with the assistance and correction 
of two (native) French teachers. But you will have much 



158 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. fl839 

superior facilities in diffusing the work, at least through 
Switzerland. 

6 T will transmit to you the sum of 211. (as soon as I 
can learn through Miss Crabtree in what way I can do 
so), to cover the expenses beforehand; and when the 
work is published, you may send me fifty copies for the 
present, that I may try how far they will be acceptable 
in France, Belgium, and Canada. The rest of the 700 I 
will send for hereafter, if I find them wanted ; and if not, 
I will let you know, that you may dispose of them your- 
self. From the specimen you have sent, it has been 
pronounced, by better judges than mj^self, that Madame 
Fabre's translation is likely to prove an important benefit 
to the French public, One or two small corrections have 
been suggested, which I really did not think worth notice. 
Perhaps she may, in some places, a little improve the 
connection of the sentences, so as to avoid what is ex- 
pressed by the French word " decousu." I take for granted 
that Madame Fabre is open to the most rigorous criticism, 
anxious only for the public good of the Christian world, 
and ready to take pains in making what is good still better. 
I judge by myself, having been rather a voluminous 
author, and having laboured more at the style of that 
little tract than that of any volume I ever published. The 
whole was subjected to the most careful revision of friends, 
and written over three or four times. 

' If you think it worth while to send over a copy of the 
whole manuscript, I will revise it, with the assistance of 
my daughter and her masters, and point out any correc- 
tions that may appear needful; but the translation (judg- 
ing from the specimen) is so good as it is, that I do not 
suppose this would make any important difference. 

'I have sent to Miss Cmbtree some books for you (by 
different authors) such as I thought likely to be new to 
you and interesting; and some of which or portions of 
them, might succeed in a French translation. I have 
already appeared twice in French : at Liege was published, 
" Notions Elementaires sur PEconomie Politique," which 
is a most excellent version from my original, by M. Vischer. 



Mt.52] THE 'TWADDLERS.' 159 

It is sold for 2o centimes, and is widely circulated, I 
understand, in France as well as Belgium. At Paris you 
can procure also "Doutes Historiques sur Napoleon," a 
translation of a little work which has also, I hear, ap- 
peared in German, having of late attracted much attention 
from its serving as an answer (though written long before) 
to Professor Strauss's theories. I wish I had heard of you 
from Miss Crab tree before I passed through Lausanne 
last summer. Her recommendation w T ould have induced 
me to seek the pleasure of your acquaintance. If there 
are many of your countrywomen equal to her in worth 
and intelligence, you are much to be congratulated. 
6 Believe me to be, with much respect, 

' Your sincere well-wisher and fellow-servant, 

6 E. Whatelt, 
* Archbishop of Dublin, 5 

Extract from a Letter. 

'December 1839. 

; The " twaddlers " to whom it seems I have introduced 
you, however intrinsically despicable, derive great impor- 
tance from circumstances. Theirs is the last new fashion. 
As the fine gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth's times delighted 
to exhibit themselves in masks as " salvage men " with 
wreathed boughs round their loins, so it is in vogue among 
a certain set of educated men to declaim against evidence, 
reason, science, argument, learning, and all, in short, that 
they denote by the title of " pride of intellect, 3 ' and to 
cry up the purity and the pious faith of our worthy fore- 
fathers, and of unsophisticated peasants ; and as the cos- 
tume of the above-mentioned makebelie^e salvages was 
admired because it was known that they had handsome 
clothes in their wardrobes, so these irrationalists are 
listened to with wonderful favour in their " babbling o J 
green fields," because it is knowm that many of them do 
themselves possess the intellectual cultivation which they 
decry.' 



160 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. F1840 



CHAPTER VII. 

1840—1841. 

Letter to Dr. Hinds on 'Tradition,' &c. — Attends Parliament — Letter to 
Mr. Senior on his Parliamentary attendance — Letters to Dr. Dickinson — 
Letter to a clergyman soliciting for a parish — Introduced to M. Gruizot — 
Hints to Transcendental! sts — Visits Tenby — Letter to Dr. Hinds on 
Church. History — Renewed intercourse with M. Sismondi — Letter to Mr. 
Senior — Letter to Lady Osborne on her praying for the Archbishop — 
Appointment of Dr. Dickinson to the Bishopric of Meath — Letter to 
Bishop of Norwich — Letter on the elevation of Dr. Dickinson — Dissolu- 
tion of Parliament — Letter to Mr. Senior — Letter to Bishop of Norwich 
— Letter to Dr. Hinds on ' Absolution ' and on Pairy Tales — Letter to 
Mr. Senior on the merits of two anonymous personages — Letter to Bishop 
of Llandaff — Letter to Miss Crabtree on a mathematical question — 
Accident to Mrs. Whately — Letter to Bishop of Llandaff — Letter to 
Mr. Senior on ' Tract No. 90 ' — Interview with Dr. Pusey — Death of his 
friend Blanco White — Visits Ems with his family — Letter to Dr. West, 

In 1840, we' find the Archbishop writing" to Dr. Hinds on 
the then much-vexed questions of tradition, reserve, and 
the gradual teaching of Gospel truth by Our Lord and 
His Apostles, on which the Tract party then so strongly 
insisted : — 

' My dear Hinds, — If you were asked to reconcile, u I 
have called you friends; for the servant knoweth not," 
&C, 1 with " Ye cannot bear them now ; when He, the 
Spirit of truth, shall come, He shall teach you," 2 &c, what 
should you say ? 

6 The Gnostics are apt to say that Jesus did not reveal 
the Gospel, and taught little else than the Jewish Law, 
leaving the Gospel to His Apostles ; and the Mystics say 

1 John xv. 15, 2 John xvi. 12. 



Mr. 53] OPIXIOXS OF THE TRADITIOXISTS. 161 

that the Apostles did not reveal it in their writings, since 
these contain only what already had been (though ob- 
scurely) hinted by Jesus, and that therefore the main part 
of the Gospel must have been left to the Church's tradi- 
tion. 

6 Do you agree, on this point, with Hawkins's tradition ? 

( I should like you to make the acquaintance of Dr. 
Taylor (Camden Town), the writer for the "Athenaeum," 
and for Parker of West Strand. He is engaged now in a 
work suggested by me, the " Natural History of Man, 
Savage and Civilised.*' He would receive a pupil of mine 
with open arms. I think you might serve one another. 

' Ever yours affectionately, 

' R. Whately. 

6 Seventh edition of ^ Logic " going to press.' 

'January 2S, 1840. 

• My dear Hinds, — The use made by the Traditionists 
of those passages is this : they find, they say, a promise 
of Jesus of a further revelation, and in the writings of the 
Apostles they find no doctrines but what had been taught 
or hinted at in His discourses ; hence they infer that the 
further revelation promised must have been committed to 
tradition. 

'Now my (present) idea is, that the admission of the 
Gentiles, and the final abolition of the Law, was the only 
new matter of distinct revelation after the departure of 
Jesus, and that even of that He had given many hints, 
not indeed meant to be understood at the time, nor even 
afterwards sufficient for their complete- guidance, but only 
enough to identify His teaching with that of the Holy 
Spirit, to show that the caH of the Gentiles was not, as 
infidels suggest, an afterthought introduced by Paul. And 
as for all other matters, the teaching of the Spirit was 
only a development and explanation of what Jesus had 
slightly and obscurely taught. 

' Now for another point : " The scribes, &c, sit in Moses 5 
seat ; whatsoever therefore they bid you," &c. Now this 
cannot extend to precepts which " make the word of God 



162 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1840 

of none effect ; " it must apply to the settling and fixing 
of things intrinsically indifferent. Does the authority 
here conceded to those scribes differ at all from what Jesus 
gave to Peter and the other Apostles in His Church — viz., 
" Whatsoever ye shall bind/' &c. ? If the authority of 
the Jewish and of the Christian elders be the very same 
in kind and in degree, have we not an exact key to the 
latter ? 

'I see a New Zealand journal advertised, but no editor 
or conductor's name. Do you know of it? It will never 
take unless supported by some known names.' 

The summons to take his seat in Parliament came at 
last in the shape of letters from his friends, showing that 
an important question was to be brought forward. He 
answered it thus : — 

< April 6, 1840. 

6 My dear Senior, — In true Irish style I send this to say 
that I shall not, as I had designed, sail to-day, on account 
of the gale, which is furious. I think, however, of ven- 
turing to-morrow, if it is at all better. As it is in my 
power to take a part, I think it a duty to do so, though a 
more odious duty can hardly be conceived than that of 
coming forward (if such should be the result) to defend the 
State, apparently at the expense of the Church, and to 
propose an apparent sacrifice of the revenues of my 
brethren in Canada, involving no diminution of my own. 
It will have been, I conceive, the most invidious task (and 
that is a bold word) ever imposed on me. Miss Fox 
speaks of the weight of my character, which I believe is 
as often as not a negative quantity, in which point of 
view I expect it will be increased.' 

The following letters appear to have been written about 
this time. The terse and pithy setting-forth of the prin- 
ciples in the second of these, on which the Archbishop 
acted with regard to the disposal of livings, is quite cha- 
racteristic ; and all who knew his mode of action are well 



Mt. 53] DISEASES OF SCHOOLS AND PARTIES. 163 

aware that he acted strictly up to the principles there 
laid down : — 

To Rev. Dr. Dickinson. 

' Thursday, May 16. 

' My dear D., — . . . Shall I print as an appendix 
to the essay on Persecution, in the u Eomish Errors/' a 
part (and what part?) of the appendix to the Jew Bill 
speech ? Miss F. told me she heard Sydney Smith ex- 
claiming, " This is unanswerable," and found, on enquiry, 
he was reading that. I told her I might be allowed to 
say it was at least thus far unanswered, 

6 Mr. Woodward says the schools have all diseases : the 
Eoman Catholic, the plague; the Protestant Church, the 
lethargy; the Presbyterians, the jaundice ; andtheArians 
the palsy. There is much truth in this, and the same 
may be said of all human communities and assemblies. 
In Parliament, for instance, the Tories have a putrid fever, 
the Whigs a tertian ague, and the Eadicals a brain -fever. 
But it is providentially ordered that different diseases 
check one another, and so the world goes on. Our schools 
are hospitals in which there is an advantage above literal 
hospitals, that they have a panacea suited to all diseases 
alike — a knowledge of Grospel history and general mental 
cultivation. If in proportion as these extend, Eomanism 
gains ground, that I must admit will be a strong pre- 
sumption that it is true.' 

To a clergyman who wrote to solicit for a parish. 

' Dear Sir, — There are many points which I wish to 
impress on the minds of all my clergy : 1 st, that none of 
them is to think, in case of his not obtaining preferment 
as soon as he may wish, that he is overlooked by me — his 
character and proceedings unknown — or his deserts, what- 
ever they may be, disregarded ; 2ndly, that in the event 
that any one of them does obtain preferment from me, he 
is not to suppose that he owes it, in any degree, to any 
application made by himself; and 3rdly, that in the same 

M 2 



164 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1840 

event, he is not to attribute my disposal of preferment to 
any consideration of his pecuniary wants ; as the only case 
in which such a consideration could influence me — that of 
a perfect equality as to all other points, between two indi- 
viduals — is not likely often to occur. Whenever there is 
any difference at all in point of qualifications, I think 
myself forced to regard the interest of the public as every- 
thing, and that of the individual as nothing.' 

It was during his short stay in London this year (April 
— May) that Dr. Whately was introduced to Gruizot, then 
French Ambassador. Although these volumes hardly 
furnish a fitting occasion for the insertion of the opinions 
of others respecting him, yet the account of the impres- 
sion made by him on an observer at once so acute, and so 
far removed from English party or local opinion, may 
interest : — 

tf Parmi les prelats anglicans avec lesquels je fis con- 
naissance, l'archeveque de Dublin, M. Whately, correspon- 
dant de notre institut, m'interessa et me surprit ; esprit 
originel, fecond, inattendu, instruit et ingenieux plutot 
que profond dans les sciences philosophiques et sociales, 
le meilleur des hommes, parfaitement desinteresse, tolerant, 
liberal, populaire, et, a travers son infatigable activite et 
son intarissable conversation, etrangement distrait, fami- 
lier, ahuri, degingaude, aimable et attachant, quelque 
impolitesse qu'il commette et quelque convenance qu'il 
oublie. II devait parler le 13 avril, a la Chambre des 
Lords, contre l'archeveque de Cantorbery et l'eveque 
d'Exeter, dans la question des liens a reserver pour le 
clerge au Canada. "Je ne suis pas sur," me dit Lord 
Holland, " que dans son indiscrete sincerite il ne dise pas 
qu'il ne sait point de bonne raison pour qu'il y ait, a la 
Chambre des Lords, un banc des eveques." II ne parla 
point, car le debat n'eut pas lieu ; mais, dans cette occa- 
sion comme dans toute autre, il n'eut certainement pas 
sacrifie aux interets de la corporation la moindre parcelle 
de ce qu'il eut regarde "comme la verite ou le bien 
public." ' (Memoires, vol. v. chap, xxx.) 



JEt. 53] HINTS TO TRANSCENDENTALTSTS. 165 

The following jeu-cV esprit is probably merely the sub- 
stance of something which was to have been expanded 
further — an ironical piece of advice, written as by an 
infidel of the Transcendental School, suggesting to his 
friends and colleagues to work through the medium of 
Tractarianism. The Archbishop often insisted on the 
resemblance between the two : — 

Hints to Transcendentalists for working infidel designs 
through Tractarianism. 

6 Experience has shown that an attempt to drive out 
superstition (except by substituting another) produces a 
reaction; for one convert to genuine philosophy, fifty 
zealots. The only way is, instead of cutting down the 
weeds, which makes them grow the faster, to apply some 
dressing to their roots which shall make them wither 
gradually. Why not leave the unenlightened vulgar in 
the arms of Christianity, taking care only that in propor- 
tion as they become enlightened they shall throw it off? 
For till they become so they will only fly from one form 
of superstition to another. But why (it may be said) not 
leave philosophy to do its own work ? Answer : Experi- 
ence shows that men considerably above the vulgar in 
many respects are yet overcome by their religious weak- 
nesses. 

'Take pains, under colour of advocating the existing 
faith, to represent it in so absurd a light, that none but 
the very weak can hold it in the literal sense, and that in 
proportion as men's minds enlarge, they will take it in a 
philosophical and figurative sense. Thus, an alarm is 
excited, and a path is opened over mountains and swamps 
which could not be removed. 

' You and I know indeed already that the popular faith 
is nonsense; but the more nonsensical we can make it, 
the sooner it will be rejected. A strong dose of medicine 
may carry off with it a smaller portion of morbid matter, 
which a weak constitution could not else get rid of. Extol 
religious faith, as independent of evidence and opposed to 



166 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1840 

reason. This will accustom men to the idea that their 
faith will not stand the test of evidence. We indeed know 
this already ; but it will greatly accelerate the process to 
have this habitually impressed on men's minds, by strenu- 
ous advocates of their religion, before they are sufficiently 
enlightened to come to the conclusion by a reasoning 
process. Their prejudices too are shocked by calling on 
them to reject their faith as irrational. Since we find men 
prejudiced, let us begin by enlisting their prejudices, 
where we can, on our side. Discourage the study of the 
Scriptures. The half-enlightened, as experience shows, 
cannot be always brought at once to see them in the right 
light, and are often confirmed in their faith. But dis- 
courage it — not, as some unwise philosophers have done, 
by decrying, but by extolling. 1st. Eepresent them as 
mystical — too sacred for prying curiosity — as parabolical 
throughout — as likely to do harm, &c. 2nd. Bring up to 
a level with them an enormous mass of other works — those 
of the fathers, liturgies, traditions, &c. You may effectu- 
ally do away the nobility, by conferring it on every one. 
The ancient warriors took a city, whose walls they could 
not beat down, by a mound outside. (So also with 
miracles ; make everything such). 3rd. Eaise other 
writings a little higher as the completion of what the 
Evangelists began. As John gave a new Grospel (beyond 
the first three), so, a newer yet by his successors. 4th. 
Make these writings (more than any man can read) a 
necessary interpreter of Scripture : men will not care 
much to study what they cannot understand without a 
commentary that is inaccessible. 

' Another advantage from this course is, that you may 
thus burden the faith with an indefinite mass of absurdities, 
which will at length break the back of credulity. Just 
observation of Paley, that the Reformers did service to 
Christianity in the matter of Transubstantiation, because 
" they relieved Christianity of a weight which sunk it." 
(Your plan, therefore, must be to add on weights.) Re- 
present the insufficiency of Scripture to establish without 
other aids the doctrines that people profess to derive from 



JEt. 53] HINTS TO TRANSCENDENTALISTS. 167 

them. Thus, those other aids will be called in (and let 
them be left indefinite) to prove, or to explain away, 
anything whatever. This makes the very foundation of 
faith something floating and unstable. 

' Next, hint that there is a secret doctrine, according to 
which the initiated understand in a peculiar sense many 
articles of the vulgar faith. If any one lets out enough 
of his secret interpretation to shock the prejudices of the 
vulgar, repudiate and condemn him, and declare that his 
is not the secret ; but never let it be understood that you 
or any one else has truly declared what the secret is. 

6 Engage a number of writers, not only real philoso- 
phers, but also some sincere bigots, to advocate your views ; 
but never let any one commit you to a responsibility for 
what he says. Let your writers of pamphlets and treatises 
be what the Cossacks were to the Russian army — to break 
the enemy if they could, or, if repulsed, to disperse as they 
could, without falling back on the main body. Proceed 
as a general does with the outworks of a fort : as soon as 
one is taken by the enemy, he fires upon it from the main 
works. Let out the philosophical explanations of Deity, 
Trinity, Incarnation, &c, but always have some one at 
hand to repudiate this. The Nile floods all Egypt, but 
conceals its course.' 

The Archbishop's stay in town was this year very short, 
and he soon joined his family-circle at Tenby, where he 
remained for a time busily engaged in compiling from the 
newspaper reports of his speeches a general one. Of this 
the letters which follow treat, with some digressions : — 

To Dr. Hinds, on Church History. 

'Dublin: May 5, 1840. 

'My dear Hinds, — We (my family and the Powells) 
shall set out on Thursday, they going on to Tenby, and I 
turning off to London, which I may reach either on Satur- 
day or Monday. I expect my motion to come on on Thurs- 
day, the 14th. 



168 LIFE OF AKCEBISHOP WHATELY. [1840 

' l'our sermon is, I conclude, waiting for me in London. 
I rather regret your having, as you say, omitted all refer- 
ence to your theory of deacons. It might have come in 
very briefly, and though not in itself essential, it is con- 
nected with some very important views. I did not know 
it had been controverted. 

' Most persons, indeed — I among the rest — had been 
accustomed to take for granted that the seven deacons 
mentioned were the first, merely from the question having 
never been raised ; but as soon as it is raised, your account 
seems so obvious, and the opposite so utterly improbable, 
that a man who should contend that the seven Grecian 
deacons are to be regarded as the only ones, might be ex- 
pected to maintain that the cakes which Sarah baked for 
the strangers were the first bread ever made, because the 
first mentioned in the Bible. I have said that your ac- 
count is connected with an important principle : if, as 
appears manifest, there were Hebrew deacons before, whose 
appointment is not recorded, and if, as I think every 
candid and intelligent reader must perceive, the appoint- 
ment of the seven is mentioned only incidentally, on ac- 
count of Stephen and Philip, this portion of narrative 
appears of a piece with all the rest of the New Testament, 
in which there is no distinct record of many institutions, 
ordinances, forms, practices, &c, which yet we are sure 
must have existed with the sanction, and some of them 
by the appointment, of the Apostles themselves. As is 
remarked concerning Creeds and Liturgies in my " Essay 
on Omissions," so also in respect of Church-government : 
it was evidently designed that each Church, in every age, 
should be left to its own discretion — a serious and consi- 
derate discretion — not an indiscretion — as to these points ; 
consequently the sacred writers not only do not lay down 
any injunctions as binding on all Christians in all ages 
but were not even allowed to make such a record of what 
they did institute, for the time, in particular churches, as 
would have practically operated as an injunction. As you 
have truly observed in another place, when some tradi- 
tional institution, system, creed, &c, has come down to us, 



JEt. 53] REMARKS OX CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 1G9 

of which great part is probably of apostolical origin, we 
are to take the whole as a human ordinance, though de- 
serving of attentive and respectful enquiry from its anti- 
quity, and as not designed (else would this have been 
distinctly stated) to bind all Christians absolutely. If I 
had, in fact, not the least doubt as to the use of leavened 
or of unleavened bread by the Apostles in the Eucharist, 
and as to the posture in which the communicants received 
it, I should not be bound to conform to their practice, nor 
to celebrate their love-feasts, ccc. In respect of Church- 
government, this principle is most perniciously lost sight 
of; Episcopalians and Presbyterians agreeing to fight out 
their battle (for a battle they make it, in plain defiance of 
the plain principle of u following after peace") on the 
question whether the one or the other form of government 
was established in each church which the Apostles founded: 
the first and main question being whether they meant that 
form, whichever it was, to be " an ordinance for ever," and 
a model to all Christian churches, and this without deliver- 
ing any injunction or giving any description relative to it, 
except the general ones of " orderly " and " edifying " sub- 
mission to " those that bear rule in the Lord," and har- 
monious concord among one another. 

6 On opposite sides the same error prevails, with equally 
baneful effects : in the Presbyterian, when he maintains 
that u Prelacy is as bad as Popery ; " and in the Tracta- 
rians, when they disallowed the title of clergy to those not 
episcopally ordained, excluding each other from the Church 
of Christ from a supposed non-agreement with the practice 
of the Apostles in matters wherein they not only did not 
enjoin conformity in all future ages to their practice, but 
( sup ernatur ally withheld, as it seems to me) do not even 
distinctly record what their practice was : but indicated, 
as plainly as it could be indicated, that while the great 
doctrines and the spirit of Christianity were to be received 
always and everywhere as of divine injunction, those other 
matters of ordinance, government, form, &c, should be 
left to the discretion — the responsible and careful discre- 
tion — of each church in each age and country. 



170 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1840 

4 By-the-bye, I do not think you ever gave me any 
opinion on my last volume (perhaps out of modesty, as I 
quoted so largely from you), which I sent you. I should 
like to know whether you think that portion of it which 
is especially directed against the Tractites is likely to do 
any good. That is now the most rapidly spreading pesti- 
lence, and when it has swallowed up, as it is rapidly doing, 
the Low Church or Gnostic party, commonly called the 
Evangelicals, will be, for its appointed day, truly for- 
midable to genuine Christianity.' 

To Dr. Dickinson. 

'London: May 26. 

6 My dear D., — I received yesterday your two of Friday 
and Saturday, and I start on Thursday for Tenby. I was at 
the Birthday Drawing-room yesterday with the Bishop and 
address. The Queen reads beautifully ; I wish she would 

teach some of my clergy. The Bishop of talked to me 

spontaneously about the Tractites ; and if you had heard 
him, you would have thought, but for the voice, that it 
was I who was speaking. I should not wonder if he were 
to oppose me to-night. Mr. Ward is to correct the press 
for me, and furnish notes on the penal colonies. Great 
attention seems excited to the subject. 

6 What sad dawdling about the Education Report ! It 
is now about two months since it was completed, and 
more than three since it was announced as just forth- 
coming. Lord Plunket will arrive in Dublin as soon as 
this. Could you not collect the clergy to a tea-party on 
Wednesday week ? Arnold wants to have the law altered 
which prohibits deacons from secular occupations, in order 
to have something like our parochial visitors. I should 
think the way to break the ground would be by a pam- 
phlet in the form of a letter to the bishops. But I shall 
talk again to the Bishop of Norwich about it. You say 
nothing of health in your last. I have good accounts from 
Tenby. 

' Ever yours affectionately, 



J£t. 53] THE CORN-LAW REPEAL AGITATIOX. 171 

During his stay at Tenby he renewed his intercourse 
with M. de Sismondi, who was then staying with his wife's 
family in the neighbourhood ; and those who survive to 
remember the pleasant social meetings of that summer, 
cannot fail to do so with interest. Secondary punishments 
were much discussed between the two political economists 
and philanthropists ; M. de Sismondi being inclined to be 
a little biassed by his own recollections of various im- 
prisonments in Geneva and Italy — first as an aristocrat in 
the old Bevolution, then as a democrat by the Austrians; 
while the Archbishop held steadily to his main principle, 
that the end of punishment is, primarily, simply the pre- 
vention of crime ; though as subservient to that, of course, 
every means should be used to reform the criminal. 

M. de Sismondi had, from his own recollections, a pecu- 
liar horror of solitary confinement, and the various systems 
tried and pursued in different countries were often made 
subjects of discussion. 

'June 6, 1840. 

' My dear Senior, — I am working hard, but advancing 
slowly. I find the compiling from the newspaper reports 
— including the incorporating of the Eeply — slower work 
than original composition ; and I have also to collect and 
arrange several notes. To fill up the slight heads, which 
in many places are all that the reporters give, and to im- 
prove the arrangement and expression, is a delicate task. 
I have accordingly resolved not to interrupt myself in it, 
but to keep at it steadily (bating, of course, the unavoid- 
able interruption of Irish letters) till finished. With my 
intellectual constitution, if I were to break off and come 
to town to speak about corn-laws, I should make but a 
poor hand of that, because it would take more time than 
would be allowed me to bring my thoughts into a new 
train; and then, there would be much time and difficulty 
in bringing them back again to my present work, and I 
should either perform this badly, or delay it till the public 
interest had died away — most likely both. I am really sorry 
not to have been able to lend a hand, slight as the advan- 



172 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [1840 

tage would probably have been, against the Corn-laws. 
And I bad designed to come up, after having finished, as I 
had hoped, the work before me. But I find this quite 
impossible ; and it is better to have a chance of doing one 
thing tolerably well, than to attempt two at once and fail 
in both.' 

'Tenby: July 4, 1840. 

' My dear Senior, — I propose to start for Waterford on 
Thursday or Friday morning. 

6 Sismondi is here, with his wife and her very agreeable 
sisters. Of course I have crammed him with penal colo- 
nies. I have resolved on stealing your copy of the 
" Statesman," unless you particularly want my pencil- 
marks in it, in which case I will restore it from Dublin. 
I little anticipated so long a job in the speech; but I am 
pretty well satisfied with it, as far as I can judge from a 
manuscript. Did the division on the Corn-laws equal 
your hopes ? 

' Weather wet, windy, woful.' 

The first letter we find after his return to Ireland, is a 
fragment to Lady Osborne, apparently in reply to one of 
hers, expressing a fear lest he would look on her praying 
for him as a mark of enthusiasm. The reply gives very 
fully his views on the subject : — 

To Lady Osborne. 

' How could you, my dear madam, suspect that I should 
censure you for enthusiasm for remembering me in your 
prayers, and for praying that I may obtain the approba- 
tion and support of sincere Christians? We are by no 
means restricted, in our private devotions, to the words or 
to the topics of the Liturgy ; but are we not, even there, 
expressly taught to pray repeatedly "that all professed 
Christians may agree in the truth, and live in unity and 
godly love " ? It is with hesitation and qualification that 
we venture to pray for anything that is entirely uncon- 



JEt. 53] A CONFIRMATION TOUE. 173 

nected with our own exertions, such as fair winds or fruit- 
ful seasons, &c. I do not know that there is a single 
petition in the Lord's Prayer which is not to be accom- 
panied with efforts of our own. But while you are pray- 
ing for mutual love and concord among Christians you 
are also labouring to promote it. 

6 Thank you for what you are so good as to say about 
Sismondi's book ; but as I am now in the midst of book- 
sellers, it will be the least trouble to procure it here. 
When I read a good many Trinitarian writers, I sometimes 
wonder that there should not be more Socinians than there 
are. There is much scholastic metaphysics afloat which 
I would put into the hands, by choice, of any one whom 
I wished to regard the doctrine of the Trinity as an absurd 
device of the schoolmen. By-the-bye, a lady who had 
been a Socinian, accidentally read the dissertation on the 
word " Person " in the Appendix to the " Logic," which 
changed her views, and she is now a member of our 
church. I wish you could get Sismondi to read Hinds' 
" Three Temples." It is the most scriptural work on the 
subject that I know.' 

To the Bishop of Nomvich. 

'Dublin: October 4, 1840. 

6 My dear Lord,— I returned last night from a confir- 
mation tour in Ferns and Leighlin (the bishop being in- 
capable), in which I confirmed, at eleven places, 1843 
persons. Pretty well for our sinecure Church ! 

' I shall order a great cargo of your pamphlets for dis- 
tribution among the clergy here. It was an unexpected 
pleasure to me to receive it, as I feared you would rest 
satisfied with the publication of the debate in the two 
pamphlets (Mr. Hull's), and the "Appeal for Church 
Government ; " both of which, by-the-bye, I suppose you 
have seen. Both are well written, and I have been oivino- 
them what circulation I can, as I wish people to see what 
is said by others as well as by myself. 

6 Your 'lordship's publication seems to me a model of 



174 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1840 

dignified forbearance. While you were cannonaded at a 
distance with generalities, you appeared to have the worst 
of it, to such an audience as the House of Lords, but on 
coming to close quarters — entering into particulars — your 
victory is complete ; and yet there is not a sign of that 
acrimony with which you were assailed. It is the very 
picture of the Lacedemonian phalanx, enduring an almost 
overwhelming shower of missiles, crushing all resistance 
when they come within pike's length, marching calmly to 
the sound of the flute, and scorning to pursue a routed 
enemy. 

' Ever, my dear Lord, most truly yours, 

<K. Dublin.' 

The next letter refers to the promotion of his valued 
friend and chaplain, Dr. Dickinson, to the bishopric of 
Meath. This promotion, though one which gave the most 
lively pleasure to the Archbishop, was not, as was generally 
supposed, the result of his application. The Eev e Dr. 
West succeeded as the Archbishop's chaplain. 

( I dare say,' he writes in a notebook, in which he 
occasionally recorded his thoughts on passing events, 
i most people supposed, and perhaps many do still, that I 
had been urgently pressing his claims on Government, 
and writing and speaking to everyone concerned, to get 
him raised to the Bench. How little such persons know 
me or him ! Of course if I had been asked to recommend, 
I should have done so ; but they could have no motive for 
this, latterly at least, as they could not doubt whom I 
should fix on. And that being the case, my urging his 
claims would have been asking a, personal favour — a thing 
I never did, nor will, from any ministry. For as soon as 
I should have contracted an obligation to a minister I 
should have put it out of my power to act rightly ; I must 
then either have sacrificed my independent judgment, and 
all the influence fairly arising thence — advantages for 
which I am responsible — or else I must, by acting occa- 
sionally against the minister, incur the imputation of in- 



Mi. 5b] DICKINSON BECOMES BISHOP OF MEATH. 175 

gratitude and treachery ; and not altogether undeservedly, 
inasmuch as I could not deny knowing what it is that 
ministers, when they confer an obligation, expect in return. 
They regard the man, in short, as bought, on whom they 
confer a favour. He who knows or believes this to be the 
case, sells himself when he accepts one ; and he who has 
sold himself has thenceforward only the alternative of 
being a slave or a cheat. "Dame qui prend, tout se 
rend." ' 

But though the Archbishop was thus firm and consistent 
in the course he had laid down for himself — never to ask 
promotion, even for the most valued friends — he never- 
theless was always ready to give them opportunities of 
recommending themselves by making known their abili- 
ties and powers, and affording them occasions to bring these 
into play. A friend remembers accompanying the Arch- 
bishop and Dr. Dickinson — a few years earlier than the 
date before us — to the Irish Office, where the Archbishop 
was soon engaged in close conference with two of the 
ministry who happened to be present, while Dr. Dickinson 
and the narrator remained in another part of the room. 
Presently the Archbishop cried out suddenly, ' Why, here 
we are talking of Irish affairs, and there is a person in the 
room who knows more of them than all of us put together ! ' 
and he called on Dr. Dickinson to come forward, and en- 
gaged him in the conversation which was going on, so as to 
give him an opportunity of showing his thorough acquaint- 
ance with the subject. 

The address of congratulation to Dr. Dickinson on 
his appointment was originated without the Archbishop's 
knowledge, and signed by a very large majority of the 
clergy of the diocese. 

To the Bishop of Norwich. 

'Dublin: November 24, 1840. 

c My dear Lord, — I cannot refrain from thanking you 
for your kind recollection of me when you were writing to 
Dr. Dickinson. 



176 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1840 

6 1 do, of course, feel a great loss in him : and, as Bacon 
says, the inconvenience is greater, and the convenience 
less, on account of the novelty. But I have no doubt I 
shall feel more and more the gain of an ally on the Irish 
Bench. 

c Independently of that, however, I were most selfish 
not to rejoice in the benefit to the Church, of seeing such 
a man put in his proper place, precisely because it is his 
proper place. If bishoprics were to be had for asking, 
and not without, neither he nor I should have been where 
we are. 

' The appointment is generally applauded. Even the 
adversaries of the Education Board have no fault to find 
with him, except that he is not one ; and it is not so 
strange that ministers should now and then appoint a man 
who supports their most important measures, as that they 
should ever have done otherwise. 

• It ought to be known that Lord Morpeth acknowledges 
he had long had Dickinson in his eye; so that we may 
conclude he deserved a large share of the credit. And it 
should also be known that he spontaneously offered the 
living (Dr. D.'s) of Anne's (in my gift, but of course 
claimable by Government) to Mr. West, the curate (now 
my chaplain and secretary ) to whom I had promised it. 

• This is like himself. With kind regards, 

• Ever, mv dear Lord, yours most trulv. 

1 B. Dublin. 3 

A dissolution of Parliament had brought round his turn 
asraiB to be in London, on which he wrote as follows to 
Mr. Senior: — 

'November 30. IS 40. 

• Mv dear Senior, — We shall most gladly receive your 

party and at Dublin, more especially as we do not 

think of coming to London for the session. I may perhaps 
come over by myself for a week, if any question should 

arise that especially calls for me; but there is so little 
done in a single session that it is by no means worth the 



^Et. 53] THE POPE AND THE EDUCATION BOARD. 177 

sacrifice. As for the Education Board, that will be far 
better defended by Lord Morpeth than it could by me, 
even if I were constantly in the House ; because he is a 
member of the administrative fund, and he has been since 
his appointment as commissioner a very regular attendant. 
No greater improvement could have been introduced into 
our Constitution. For want of it the whole question has 
been considered more as a contest between myself and 
Phillpotts, than as one in which Government were fully 
embarked. John Tuam is very active against us, and has 
gained over, I understand, the Cardinals ; but still i have 
no great fears of the system being formally disallowed by 
the Pope, even by a future Pope, who shall be one of those 
very Cardinals, but who will hesitate to take so strong a 
step as Pope. I think the system will go on and take 
more and more root in the minds of the people, till the 
Tories come in ; but then I fear confidence will be with- 
drawn from it, and John Tuam will carry his point. I 
have heard from Sieveking, who has sent over copies of 
the Latin treatise he got printed at Frankfort. You can 
get a copy of Fellowes. Of course you will* send him, or 
anyone else, copies of " Whately on Shakespeare,'* of which 
you are fairly entitled to as many as you wish. Lord 
Plunket is greatly interested by your part of the work. 

6 Your account of your tour is indeed most cheering. 
We have not resolved on anything for next summer. All 

will depend upon what the medical men say of . If 

compelled to go abroad, it will perhaps be as good or 
better for her to remain fixed in one place, if we could 
find one that would suit us ; but I don't think in all our 
travels we saw any place where we should at all like to 
remain. To me it is indifferent, provided we do not stay 
in a valley — the only situation that disagrees with me. I 
have no objection to the act of travelling; what I miss is 
something to do, some spyov to accomplish. I have out- 
lived the power of being amused, passively, for more than 
a day or two at a time. I have been too long an actor to 
endure being a spectator long together, however splendid 
the scenes, and excellent the performance. Perhaps if I 

N 



178 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [l840 

were no longer Archbishop, I might spend my time very 
happily in writing books ; but I must have something to 
accomplish, else I should feel much as Napoleon did in 
St. Helena, and as he vjoulcl have equally felt had he had 
the whole world to wander over, supposing he could have 
been effectually bound, to continue a mere spectator, with 
nothing to do but to see, read, converse, &c. The differ- 
ence between him and me, of his seeking glory and power 
for himself, and I some public benefit, does not affect the 
present question. But it adds to my discomfort when 
abroad to be always suspecting (as experience has lately 
shown, not without reason) that something will be going 
wrong in my absence. Dickinson made a speech at the 
Lord Mayor's, at a meeting respecting emigration, dis- 
suading settlers from the penal colonies ; and the report 
of it has reached Frankfort, London, and Edinburgh, and 
has called forth angry letters, of which the publication is 
threatened, from persons interested in those delectable 
regions. A spark seems to have fired the train I have 
been so long laying. The demons begin to cry out, and 
we may hope will be ejected.' 

Extract from a Letter to the Bishop of Norwich. 

'Dublin: December 19, 1840. 

f 1 am glad you seem to entertain those cheering views 
in the midst of your discouragements, which I endeavoured 
to express in my last two charges. 

' Some consider me (though my temper is the reverse) 
as very sanguine, because I always attempt whatever has 
even a slight prospect of success, and am never disheartened 
by failure. But the fact is, I never do fail ; for my orders 
are, not to conquer, but only to fight; and whenever I 
do happen to conquer also, that is so much over and 
above. 

< Though you might suppose me to be overflowing with 
leisure, from my bestowing so much of my tediousness on 
you, it is only because, having pen in hand, I do not like 
to leave unsaid what occurs to me ; but I have now two 



Mr. 53] THE OXFORD TRACTS. 179 

sermons in the stocks, besides an examination for orders. 
I have not time therefore to read, except by proxy. Mrs. 
W. has been reading Gladstone for me. She says he begins 
in a moderate and rational style, proceeds to some startling 
and revolting conclusions, and then (like the doctor who 
ordered the ice to be warmed) concludes by neutralising 
all he had been saying, and leaves you just as wise as before 
you opened his book. I am meditating a very important 
work, in which, as it will be a work of many hands, you 
may perhaps find me some assistants. I am proposing to 
set several persons to work to compose an Index to the 
Oxford Tracts, including the remains of Froude, Xewman's 
Arians, and other avowed publications of the avowed 
Tractites. It is quite right that the whole series should 
be brought up before the tribunal of the public as a whole. 
Their policy is, to obtain for each tract whatever influence 
it may derive, not only from its intrinsic merits, but from 
its being part of a series, coming out under the sanction 
of a certain committee, or whatever it may be called (which 
is quite fair) ; but then (which is quite unfair), if the tract 
be refuted or objected to, to disown it, as "the work of a 
very young man," for which no one is at all responsible 
but the individual author, and our judgment of which is 
not at all to affect the general character of the tracts. Now 
this may be called " playing fast and loose." 

6 The " Lessons on Evidences " have been translated 
into French by a lady at Lausanne, and Fellowes has some 
copies for sale. It is very well done. There is an Italian 
version just about to be printed at Brussels. Perhaps 
your son can learn whether any could be usefully conveyed 
to the Greek islands.' 

The following letter (to Dr. Hinds) alludes to the Arch- 
bishop's views on the much-disputed passage, ' Whoseso- 
ever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them,' &e. He 
always considered this passage as relating to offences 
punishable by the religious community, the Church, not 
to sins against God. At a later period he developed these 
views more fully in his work, c The Kingdom of Christ.' 

N 2 



180 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1840-1 

The postscript relates to a literary effort which, though 
trifling in itself, was interesting to him. His fondness 
for fairy-tales and fairy mythology, a branch of romantic 
literature generally despised by all but the very young, 
was characteristic of his mind. A good fairy-tale never 
lost its charm for him ; and the outlines of the pretty little 
stories which occur in Mrs. Whately's tale, ' Reverses,' were 
furnished by him. The ' Tales of the Genii ' had been old 
favourites of his youth ; he would often repeat from memory 
striking passages in them, which illustrated special truths 
he was explaining, and he had always regretted that the 
book was one whose character in some respects made it 
objectionable for young people. It was at his suggestion, 
therefore, that Mrs. Whately undertook to revise and alter 
the tales so as to make them fit for the perusal of young 
people. This was done in so successful a manner, that 
some good judges considered the literary merit of the work 
increased ; but being, unfortunately, published under the 
old title, which did not imply any alteration, this little- 
book has been less known than it deserved. He was 
always ready to answer the scruples of many excellent 
persons against fictions, by observing that the imagination 
has been given us by God, and that as He had seen fit to 
bestow it, it must assuredly be intended to be employed ; 
and the very examples of the use of parables in Scripture 
show that fictitious narrative is sanctioned by Him : that 
a judicious selection is at all times to be preferred to a 
system of exclusion, and that young persons, if too severely 
restrained from gratifying so strong a natural taste, may 
indemnify themselves, when older, by an indiscriminate 
and hurtful indulgence of it. 

'December 25, 1840. 

'My dear H., — I have been to-day sledge-hammering 
your idea about Simeon into a sermon. It does well. 

6 I think you have come round very nearly to my view 
about remission — i.e., not absolute remission of sins (though 
they aee sins against God) as sins against God, but as ex- 
cluding from the Church. 



^t. 54] THE MERITS OF TWO ANONYMOUS PERSONAGES. 181 

8 PS. — Do you know the purified " Tales of the Genii/* 
edited by Mrs. W. ? (not with her name).' 

The earliest letters on our list for the year 1841 need little 
or no explanation. The lively description of two person- 
ages, on whose merits Mr. Senior had been questioning the 
Archbishop, is truly characteristic. 

The letter to Miss Crabtree (February 23) is apparently 
on some mathematical question she had put before the 
Archbishop. He always shrank from giving an authori- 
tative decision on matters of this kind. 

To N. Senior, Esq. 

'Palace: January 4, 1841. 

'My dear S., — It is very curious that, of all possible 

mistakes, the learning of and the activity of ■ 

should be celebrated in England ; the remarkably illite- 
rate character of the one (who does not even pretend not 
to hate the very sight of a book), and the apathetic slug- 
gishness of the other, being here a common joke. is 

a member of several boards ; and, what is more, he often 
attends at them (not to them) ; and hence the mistake. He 
will sit you for two or three hours, present in body, though 
absent in mind — " avec l'air d'un mouton qui reve." And 
if you address a remark or question to him, you will find 
he knows as much of what has been going on as the afore- 
said sheep ; but when roused to attention, he will make 
shrewd remarks, and often give sound judgments; for 
he really is a man of a fair degree of intelligence, though, 

to be sure , if " sawn into quantities,'' would make 

half a dozen of him. His apparently stupid apathy, 
which leads some at the first interview to underrate 
him, makes others, afterwards, to overrate him ; for it is 
like the "locutus bos " of Livy. If you were to hear an 
ox utter a sensible remark, your astonishment would set 
it off, and it would seem not only prodigious, but prodi- 
giously wise; and, moreover, you would not know what 
he might say next, if the humour took him ; you might 



182 LIFE OF .ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1841 

guess that he knew all things, and if he would but speak 
more, might instruct the world. Another cause is, that 
he has a way of saying, " I quite agree with you ; " and 
Swift remarks that " the short way to obtain the reputa- 
tion of a sensible man is, when any one tells you his 
opinion, to agree with him." Yes (you will perhaps 
answer), a short way to gain it, and a short way to lose it 
again ; since such a man's word must often contradict his 
actions, and each other. So I should have thought, a 
priori, but much depends on whom you have to deal with. 
" Old birds," they say, " are not caught with chaff," but I 
suppose young ones are. I remember, soon after I came 
here, having occasion to point out a very objectionable 

passage in a sermon of ? s (entering on politics), and 

he " quite agreed with me," but next week published the 
sermon as it was. Thenceforward I knew him, so far; 
and before long, I knew him "intus et in cute." But 
there are many who have long had dealings with him, and 
yet have not found him out. These are right in reckon- 
ing him a superior man ; for superior to them he surely is. 
If Ministers trust him not to take any steps that may 
benefit himself, though all the Whigs in the empire were 
to be hanged fifty cubits high, they will be acting against 
the knowledge of him which they ought to have acquired, 
and easily may. They fancy him a man of steady Whig 
principles. Heaven knows, he is pretty steady to his own 
principle, which is, to provide for his own interest ! I never 
knew him act independently as to that principle. Those are 

equally mistaken who calculate on 's steady support 

of ministers. They ought to be aware, for it is no secret, 
that he was prepared to oppose the tithe-bills, tooth and 
nail; only it happened not to come on while be was in 
Parliament. He is somewhat open to love of popularity 
with those immediately around him, and has, I fear, too 
little principle to guard him against the effects. ^ 

'He has never opposed the Education Board; but he 
has not, that I can learn, made any vigorous exertions in 
its favour. 

' He is, like the other, a good-humoured character ; and 



&T. 54] LETTER TO THE BISHOP OF LLAXDAFF. 183 

likes, when he can, though not so unblushingly, to say 
and do at the moment whatever is likely to be acceptable 
to the persons present. On the whole, I do not think 
either of them much more to be depended on by a party 

than , or myself. The two last will not support any 

ministerial measure where conscientious principle inter- 
feres, and self-interest or love of popularity may exercise 
a like interference in the case of the others.' 

To Bishop Copleston. 

'Dublin: February 5, 1841. 
is accounted, by the most competent judges here, 



an author rather to be referred to than read, being chiefly 
an indefatigable searcher in books ; a man pretty strong 
in •• simplex apprehensio," weak in "judicium," and stark 

nought in ei aimunenta." I have not read him or 

on this subject, though the latter appears, from what I 
have read, to be decidedly clear, only eaten up with con- 
ceit. is a man who first makes up his mind (soon 

made up, as being very small), and then seeks for reasons ; 
of course, if he chance to stumble on a good one, not re- 
jecting it; but he is not implicitly to be trusted even 
in his statements of facts. I do not mean that he would 
absolutely fabricate ; but I have known him put forth 
(when on his own side) the greatest misstatements, which 
he could easily have ascertained to be such. In religion 
he is, in all essential points, a Papist ; only, like Henry 
VIII,, he would like to be himself Pope. The most offen- 
sive doctrines, including persecution, he does not disavow. 
Though a bitter enemy of the Eoman Catholics, he is yet 
one degree more bitter against all Protestants, including 
many members of his own Church, who do not coincide 
with his views. Of course it would not suit their views to 
go to the root of the controversy, which lies in those points 
common to the Church of Pome and the Oxford Tractites ; 
a party whose origin I partly foresaw and foretold, with a 
delineation of its characteristics, in the u Errors of Ro- 
manism." ' 



184 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1841 

To Miss Crabtree. 

'Dublin: February 23, 1841. 

6 My dear Miss Crabtree, — Thank you for the letters. I 

shall consult again, or some other who knows the 

subject well. I mention this — and I mentioned it before 
— to clear myself of the presumption (which I think it 
would be) of making decisions on any subject which I do 
not profess to be a proficient in. And you, I think, would 
not infer from this that I consider mathematics as a sub- 
ject in which questions are to be " decided by authority ! 5? 
I dare say you are even in the habit of consulting the 
almanac to know when there will be a new moon, without 
the least idea that the motions of the heavenly bodies are 
not susceptible of exact calculations, or that questions of 
astronomy are to be decided by " authority. 55 

6 At present, having had no time for a very slight glance, 
it strikes me that the way I and everybody else judge of 
the probability of a conclusion is just the same, as far as 
we have data to proceed on, as insurance offices use. For 
instance, ** of men that have such-and-such symptoms, on 
the average, so many per cent, have the plague, 55 and so 
many per cent, of plague-patients die, &c. 

* As for the data, insurance offices themselves are more 
or less correct according as the statistical reports are full 
and accurate. The Norwich Insurance Office, either from 
erroneous information, or from increased duration of life, 
since it was founded, had for several years charged too 
high a premium, having underrated the chances of life ; 
and they have thus an enormous accumulation of capital, 
which they know not what to do with. 

' I cannot believe than any one, 1st, considers a probable 
argument as good for nothing ; 2nd, or again that all such 
arguments are equally probable ; 3rd, or again that two 
or three such arguments, leading to the same conclusion} 
are, together, of no greater force than one of them alone. 
Then surely there must be a mode of computing their 
joint force. 5 



Mt. 54] ACCIDENT TO MKS. WHATELT. 185 

The letters which follow allude to a severe accident of 
Mrs. Whately, who was long laid up in consequence of a 
compound fracture of the leg, which threatened serious 
effects on her health. This anxiety suggested the follow- 
ing characteristic letter to Bishop Copleston : — 

'March 7, 1841. 

c My dear Lord, — Mrs. W; 5 I am happy to say, is going 
on as favourably as we could venture to hope, but of course 
has suffered and must suffer much. It was a fortnight 
before she could be lifted out of bed to have it made. 

6 Once before, I had worse news to give of her, when 
for about three weeks she was wavering between life and 
death in the typhus-fever at Halesworth ; " And whether 
she'd live or die, why the doctors didn't know." She has 
suffered less than I had feared, of her old enemy, palpita- 
tion, which always comes at the back of every other as- 
sailant, bodily or mental; like the Helots of old, who 
were sure to make an insurrection when there was an 
earthquake, or a foreign war, or any other trouble at 
hand. 

'What a strange thing it is, that there are so many 
different kinds of bodily suffering, and some of them among 
the most severe, which we never call pain ; and yet there 
are different kinds of pain too ! What can be the differ- 
entia that belongs to all that we call 6i pain," and which 
is absent from these other sensations, which no one calls 
pains, but yet very disagreeable : e.g. nausea, sense of suffo- 
cation, nervous agitation, &c. and among others — what I 
believe is among the most dreadful, though I know it only 
by what I see in others, and hear them describe — that 
palpitation ? 

' It is, as you say, a double trial of one's firmness, when 
the things to be borne are such as one cannot try or wish 
to be indifferent about. Opposition from enemies or 
strangers, obloquy or contempt from those one wishes to 
esteem, perverseness or folly in those from whom one has 
no reason to expect anything better, and the like, are 
things which to some people (as far as I can judge by 



186 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1841 

observation of them) are no trial of any consequence. I 
suppose those who have what the phrenologists call the 
organ of firmness much developed, receive a positive 
gratification from its exercise, and ditto with the organ of 
combativeness. My natural endowments on those points 
are but small ; and I believe it is, universally, more easy 
to acquire a habit of acting like than of feeling like a 
person of such natural endowments. 

6 It is commonly said at Oxford, at least used to be, that 
it was next to impossible to make a Wykehamist believe 
that any examination could be harder than that which the 
candidates for New College undergo. 

'Now it is about equally difficult to convince me that 
any one can have a greater or more painful effort to make 
than myself in acquiring a habit of firmness. In this, 
however, I may conceivably be mistaken ; and whether I 
am or not, no one can ever decide, since no one can feel 
what is within another's breast. But in this I am a com- 
petent judge, that no earthly object could ever repay me 
for the labour and the anguish of remodelling my nature 
in these respects. I have succeeded so far that I have even 
found myself standing firm when some men of constitu- 
tional intrepidity have given way; and, indeed, I have 
heard seamen say that if a mast is well spliced, it will 
sooner break anywhere else than there. I feel that I can 
trust this splice in my character ; but this I may safely 
say, that if any one whom I conceived to be of just such 
a constitution as mine, but who had no thought or belief 
of another world, were to consult me whether, with a view 
to worldly objects alone, it were worth his while to attempt 
the conquest of timidity, irresolution, bashfulness, sensi- 
tiveness to public opinion, and other such dispositions, 
and whether, if he achieved this conquest, and made a 
creditable and thoroughly prosperous career in some public 
station, he would be repaid for his efforts and suffering, I 
should answer at once in the negative, and should recom- 
mend (supposing, all along, the present world alone to be 
considered) that he should take the " fallentis semita vitse 
. . .nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis," &c. 



^t. 54] TRANSLATION OF THE ' EVIDENCES.' 137 

The process of mental case-hardening, I should tell him, 
is more pain than Aladdin's lamp and ring would repay.' 

It was just about this time that the appearance of 6 Tract 
No. 90 ' had created a universal excitement among all in 
any way interested in theological controversy. He writes 
to Mr. Senior on the subject: — 

'Dublin: April 2, 1841. 

6 My dear Senior, — The Bishop of Norwich has sent me 
a very able and well-written pamphlet by Prebendary 
Wodehouse, on Subscription, and in favour of Church 
Government, and he is anxious to have it reviewed. I 
should think, in conjunction with the Bishop of N.'s own 
speech and the " appeal," an article might be made on it, 
which would be very interesting at this time, when all 
Oxford is in a ferment about Tract No. 90. He suggested 
to me to apply to you thereupon. If you think there is 
any hope of getting an article from yourself, or from any 
one you know, inserted in any review, perhaps you had 
better see the bishop about it. Just at this crisis a good 
hard thrust might thoroughly overthrow the party. 

' Ever yours, 

' E. Whately.' 

The next letter is in answer to a request for an article, 
probably on the same subject. He was still engaged in 
superintending translations of the ' Evidences ' in different 
languages. He lived to see it in twelve or fourteen. 

'April 10, 1841. 

6 My dear Senior, — I could not trust 's directions, 

but I will try to get an article by a better hand, if you 
think you can make interest to get it inserted. I shall 
try Hinds first, and some others if he refuses. It is curious 
that the very day after yours arrived, I received a letter 
from a clergyman at Pisa, suggesting an Italian version of 
the " Evidences," for which he thinks he can give circula- 



188 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1841 

tioia. It is provoking that there should be a demand and 
a supply, and yet they cannot be brought to meet. 

' I do not know to what extent Government have inter- 
fered in respect of poor-law offices here, but I suppose 
neither ministers nor commissioners could refuse to favour 
• in the appointments those who took a prominent part in 
the contest about the bill. 

' It is one of the evils of any measure (supposing it ever 
so good in itself) that is carried by such means as that 
was, that you in great measure preclude yourself from 
employing creditable instruments. If the truest religion 
is propagated by force, reprobate dragoons and their com- 
panions must be your missionaries ; if you smuggle in the 
best commodities, the dealers will be reprobate sailors 
and ruffians, -&c.' 

It was in this year that he had an interview with Dr. 
Pusey, at Brighton, which, as it has been grossly misre- 
presented, and stated as having taken place under different 
circumstances and at a much earlier period, may need to be 
explained here. 

They met as old college associates, on the most friendly 
terms. Dr. Pusey, in the course of the interview, asked 
the Archbishop's permission to preach in his diocese. The 
Archbishop told him, candidly, he dreaded his introducing 
novelties. 6 Not novelties, 5 replied the other. ' Well, if 
you will, antiquities,' said the Archbishop. Dr. Pusey 
requested him to name some examples of these ' anti- 
quated novelties,' and he instanced the practice lately in- 
troduced of mixing water with wine at the communion. 
Dr. Pusey excused the practice by observing that at the 
early communion complaints had been made that the wine 
affected the heads of the communicants ! The Arch- 
bishop exclaimed, ' Oh ! Pusey, you cannot be serious ; ' 
and at last he added, in his own account of the conversa- 
tion, ' I fairly made him laugh.' 

It was about this time that the news reached the Arch- 
bishop of the death of his friend Mr. B. White, an event 
which could not be unexpected to those who knew how 



J£t. 54] VISITS EMS WITH HIS FAMILY. 189 

long and severe bad been bis bodily sufferings for 
years. 

In tbe summer, Mrs. Whately being sufficiently re- 
covered to travel, tbe family removed first to Brighton, 
and then to Ems, whose waters had been prescribed for 
some of the party. The narrow and confined, though 
picturesque, valley of the Lahn had, however, an unfa- 
vourable effect on the Archbishop's health, and at the end 
of a fortnight he returned to England, leaving his family 
to follow when the ' cure ' was completed. 

The following letter to Dr. West (now his chaplain in 
Bishop Dickinson's stead; describes his impressions of 
Ems : — 

To Dr. West, 

'Nassau: July 21, 1841. 

'My dear West, — I send you a view of our "happy 
valley." It is very pretty — I dare say as much so as 
Rasselas's ; and I would, if 1 had enough bodily energy 
left, dig a hole in the mountain, like him, rather than live 
in a valley. I do not think, however, that I have as yet 
suffered quite so much as I have in others. Mr. and Mrs. 
Henry Taylor are here, as agreeable as I had expected. 
She is beautiful, and very pleasing. He has read the 
" Bishop," and thinks it very clever, but not agreeable in 
style. He says Bishop Stanley was much taken with it, 
and had been enquiring of all the bishops to find out the 
author. Senior also has read it, and with approbation. 
The chief censure I have heard pronounced on it is, that 
if a man does not know better than to need such advice, 
he must be incapable of profiting by it. Now, as the same 
may be said of nearly all the advice that ever has or will 
be given — e.g., all sermons, charges, &c. (including Paul's 
to Timothy ; for one might say, could Timothy want to be 
told that a bishop ought not to be a. brawling drunkard ?) 
— this is a matter for serious consideration; not least for 
me and my brother of Meattu Shall we spare ourselves 
(I this year, and he next) the trouble of writing charges ? 
If not, pray turn in your mind (and in his) what I shall 



190 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1841-2 

say, as the time draws near. The company mostly go and 
return to church and everywhere else on donkeys, which 

are in vogue for all ranks and sexes. There was 

mounted on another ass. It is the Queen of Greece (not 
Russia) that is here. There are multitudes here of huge 
orange-coloured slugs; shall I bring over some to fill 
sinecure places in Ireland ? The papers speak of Lord 
Lansdowne as detained by illness at Liege. On Sunday, 
Cox came over to consult about the index. He has a great 
part, but not the whole, of Mr. Croly's ; he is willing to 
enter into direct communication with him, and thinks he 
can make such additions (having read all the tracts as 
they came out, and also the other works of the authors) 
that they, two together, will produce a valuable work. 
His direction is Grodesberg, near Bonn, Rhine. You may 
communicate with him on Croly's behalf. Crolyneed not 
be ashamed of using his aid, for he is a very intelligent 
man, and quite up to the subject, having been all along 
on the spot. 5 



2Et. 55] DEATHS OF ARNOLD AXD DICKINSON. 191 



CHAPTER VIII. 

1842—1847. 

Deaths of Dr. Arnold and Dr. Dickinson — Publication of Dr. Arnold's 
Sermons, &c. — Appointment of Dr. Hinds to living of Castleknock — 
Visits Dr. A.'s Family — Anecdotes of the Archbishop — 'Life of Blanco 
White' — Attends the Parliamentary Session — Letters to Rev. A. P. 
Stanley and Mrs. Arnold relating to Dr. Arnold's Works — Letter to 
Lady Osborne — Triennial Visitations of the Archbishop — Conversation 
with his Clergy on the importance of studying the Irish Language — 
Spiritualism — Letter on Animal Magnetism — Tribute to Bishop Copleston 
— Letter to same — Anecdote of Mrs. Whately : the poor sick woman and 
her cleanliness — The tour to Switzerland — Reminiscences of the visit by 
Mr. Arnold — Anecdotes of the Archbishop — Distress in Ireland — The 
Archbishop's munificence — His measures for relief — Attends the Session 
of 1847 — Letter to Mr. Senior on the distress — Bill for Out-Door Relief 
in Ireland — Letter to Mrs. Arnold — Letter on translation of the Works of 
George Sand — Formation of the Statistical Society — Interest taken by 
the Archbishop in the Society. 

The year 1842 was to be a year marked by very deep 
and peculiar trial to the Archbishop — trial felt by him 
both as a philanthropist and public-spirited man, anxious 
that lives he believed useful to the state should be pre- 
served; and as a private individual, from the remarkable 
warmth and steadiness of his friendships. Several whom 
he valued were this year withdrawn; but two especially 
and pre-eminently dear to him, whose loss could never be 
in this world replaced, were removed in the course of one 
short month. On the 12th of June of that year Dr. 
Arnold's sudden decease took place, followed early in July 
by that of Bishop Dickinson, so long his faithful and de- 
voted helper in all his work, and then his valued and 
trusted colleague and ally on the bench. 

His mind was more deeply depressed by these bereave- 



192 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1842 

ments than it had been at any previous period of his life ; 
and though he continued the active discharge of his duties 
with characteristic resolution and perseverance, it was with 
a saddened heart and a continual struggle for calm sub- 
mission to the will of an all-wise God. 

The letters that follow show in what spirit he met 
these losses. He announces them himself to three of his 
friends; and then proceeds to consult with the Bishop of 
Norwich, and with Mrs. Arnold, on the subject of the 
publication of the letters and posthumous sermons of Dr. 
Arnold. 

'Dublin: July 15, 1842. 

'My dear Hampden,— You will not wonder at my not 
having immediately returned your letter, considering what 
two stunning blows I have just received. It is a sore trial 
to one's faith to see such men cut off in such a career of 
public service. 

'But God needs not our help. May He be pleased to 
raise up other instruments, as purely devoted to His will 
and' to man's good! More so I cannot conceive in a 
mortal. 

' K. Whately.' 

To . 

'July 1842. 

c My dear Friend, — You had better hear from me what 
you cannot fail to hear, of the second heavy loss which I 
have sustained in one short month. Bishop Dickinson 
died at 1 2 o'clock this day. I feel hardly more than half 
alive. He had been for ten years my true " yoke-fellow ; " 
always associated with me in every duty and plan for the 
public good. How mysterious are the ways of Provi- 
dence ! 

' But God needs not our services. If it were His will 
He could send some apostle, endued with miraculous power, 
who would effect more in a month than any of us can in 
a life. 

' It is a blessing, and in some degree a lasting one, when 



Mr. 55] VISITS DR. ARNOLD'S FAMILY. 193 

men of high intellectual powers are sincere Christians ; it 
tends to destroy the association so apt to be formed be- 
tween religion and silly superstition, or at least feeble 
understanding. And of all the highly-gifted men I have 
ever known, the two I have so lately been bereft of were 
the very best Christians. I mean that they were not 
merely eminently good men, but men who made it their 
constant business to bring their religion into their daily 
life and character. 

' The two had some different opinions from each other ; 
but they were strikingly alike in making the Christian 
character — the Gospel spirit embodied in the life — their 
great study. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see (rod," and when they meet, in His presence, they 
will know perfectly — and not care at all — which was the 
nearest to the truth in his opinions here on earth. 

6 Pray for me, dear friend, that I may be able to bear 
up against the rough blasts of opposition which I have to 
encounter, when such props are taken from me ! ' 

The end of this year, so full of trial, brought him some 
cheering influence in the appointment of his friend Dr. 
Hinds, who had accepted the living of Castleknock, near 
Dublin. The prospect of having this valued companion 
of his earlv davs ao'ain near him was the most consoling 
one of which his circumstances now admitted. 

In the December of this year he paid a visit — to nim 
deeply affectino; — to the bereaved family of his beloved 
friend Dr. Arnold, in their home at Fox How in West- 
moreland. In the letters written by them at this time are 
several notices of this visit, so highly prized by them, 
which give so lively a picture of his habits in social and 
domestic intercourse, that we will quote one or two : — 

4 Have I ever described to you the Archbishop's manner 
when he was here? It was really very affecting, and con- 
tinually, without one word of profession, showed forth his 
love for his friend and his mingled compassion and affec- 
tion for that friend's wife and children. Even what might 
be called the natural roughness of his character seemed 



194 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1843 

softened and harmonised ; and it was very striking to see 
him wandering about here — looking at the flowers and 
talking with the gardener, with the younger ones playing 
about him. just as he did at Rugby. 3 

'After luncheon/ writes another of the family, -'we 
went up to Loughrigg with the Archbishop, and a most 
delightful walk we had. As we came back we overtook a 
little girl about six years old. who has daily to carry a 
heavy can of milk a distance of two miles. The poor 
little thing was quite frightened at having to go so far in 
the dark. The Archbishop was shocked at her having to 
carry such a load, so some of us took her can. and he 
carried her himself to Fox How, whence the rest of us 
walked home with her.' 

In the following year (1843), we find my father receiv- 
ing and answering frequent letters of consultation on the 
subject of memorials, epitaphs, and biographies of Dr. 
Arnold, whose loss was still fresh in the minds and hearts 
of all who had the privilege of knowing him. 

It was about this time that the ; Life of Blanco White ' 
(who, as has been mentioned, died in 1841) was published. 
The Archbishop, in common with all the early friends of 
this afflicted man, had greatly deprecated the publication 
of this memoir, which, under the circumstances, could 
scarcely be done fairly. They, therefore, almost all re- 
fused to contribute any letters or papers to the biography 
in question. The following letter from the Archbishop is 
on this subject : — 

•'April 25. 1843. 

6 Dear Sir — The " Life of Blanco White " I have looked 
into just enough to see that it is pretty much what I might 
have expected, considering who the editor is ; for he is the 
very person who wrote, as I am credibly informed, a short 
memoir of B. White in some Unitarian periodical soon 
after his death, and which I happened to get a sight of a 
year or two after. 

6 In that he represents B. W. as banished by his friends, 
and left to pass the remainder of his days in poverty and 



Mr. 56] 'LIFE OF BLANCO WHITE.' 195 

solitude; the fact being — 1st. That lie left my house en- 
tirely at his own desire. 2nd. That he received a pension 
from me, and another from another friend. And 3rd. 
That I and my family, and several other of his former 
friends, kept up a correspondence with him, and visited 
him whenever we passed through Liverpool. 

' Now from a person who, with the knowledge of these 
facts, could deliberately set himself to produce in the mind 
of the public an opposite impression (as any one may see 
by looking at that first memoir I have alluded to), no 
great amount of delicacy or scrupulosity could be ex- 
pected 

'That the present publication surpasses the average (of 
publications of this kind) in bringing before the public 
what is most emphatically private, — in the indecent ex- 
posure of the private memoranda of an invalid in a diseased 
state of mind, — this will be evident to every one who gives 
but the slightest glance at the book. 

g I know publications of this character are a sort of 
nuisance for which there is no remedy. I am only solici- 
tous to clear my own character, and also that of poor 
Blanco White himself, from the imputation of any re- 
sponsibility on this account. 

' I myself, as I have already informed you, was applied 
to, to furnish letters, &c. from and to the deceased; and I 
declined, stating as one decisive reason that I knew him 
to be in an unsound state of mind for several years ; and 
that I could clearly establish this, both by documents in 
my possession and by the testimony of several competent 
persons, including two of his medical attendants, unknown 
to each other ; so that no memoir not adverting to this 
fact (which, of course, I did not wish to proclaim) could 
be correct, or could fail to convey positively erroneous im- 
pressions. I am, therefore, no party to the publication ; 
nor, on account of his state of mind, can T consider Blanco 
White as being so, whatever he may in that morbid state 
have said, written, or done. . . . And this it is right 

o 2 



196 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TTHATELY. [1843 

should be made known to any who may feel an interest in 
the subject. 

' Yours faithfully, 

1 Ed. Dublin. 5 

The Archbishop was this year again in London for the 
session. While there. Mr. Stanley consulted him on the 
publication of a letter of Dr. Arnold's on Irish affairs. 

To the Rev. A. P. Stanley. 

■London; May 3. 1843. 

6 My dear Sir. — Many thanks for what you have done 
for Edward, which is perfectly satisfactory. It would be 
strange indeed for me to object to a tutor for having been 
in the second class. I was elected at once against two 
first-class men; and I remember once we had eight can- 
didates for two vacancies, and the men we elected were 
the only two that were not first-class ; and this, not from 
any contempt of the school examinations, for we were not 
even aware of the fact till after the election. 

' As general rules — subject, of course, to many excep- 
tions : 1st. A first-class man is likely to be one who is 
quicker in learning than a second-class. And 2nd. A slow 
man is likely to be a better tutor than a very quick one. 

' I mvself beino- more of a hone than of a razor, should 
at this day be justly placed, at an examination, a class 
below some other men in point of knowledge, whom I 
should surpass in the power of imparting it. . . . 

'In haste, vours truly, 

' Ed. Dublin. 3 

Again, after his return to Ireland, he writes as follows 
to Mrs. Arnold on the subject of her husband's biography, 
at that time in preparation : — 

'Dublin: Aug. 16. 

6 My dear Friend, — If you in fact are ultimately the 
editor, so that you are to have unlimited power — as surely 



Mt. 5G] DR. ARNOLD S BIOGRAPHY. 197 

you ought to have — over every MS. before it goes to 
press, I think it likely that that very circumstance may 
check those who might otherwise endeavour to show 
objects through their own coloured glass. 

6 u A mediant chien, court lien." Let no one deter you 
from exercising your ow r n judgment in this matter. The 
responsibility is heavy, but it must be yours after all; 
since whatever others may do by your permissicm is virtu- 
ally done by you. 

' and 3 I find, have discovered that Arnold 

was a most estimable man, and did not really differ from 
them at bottom ! 

'I dare say the same discoveries will be made of me, 
after I am dead, and not before. The bees will come and 
build their combs in the lion's carcase, but not while he 
lives ! 

6 1 think if this sort of patronage was to be extended to 
me, Mrs. W. would reject their posthumous honey — or at 
least I should if in her place — by saying, Why did you not 
find out his good qualities sooner ? I will tell you why : 
it is because they wanted the one circumstance which 
really recommends him to you — his death. Why did you 
not earlier declare his coincidence, at bottom, with your 
views ? I will tell you : it is because he was alive to con- 
tradict you. You are like the savages of the South Sea 
Islands, who are glad to get hold of the body of a dead 
enemy, that they may fashion his bones into spear-heads 
for future combats. " Be content," she would say, " with 
having misrepresented him while living ; but expect not 
me to aid you in misrepresenting him when dead. I will 
not help you in whitening the sepulchres of the prophets 
whom you have stoned ! " 

6 1 would have you receive courteously all contributions 
of letters, &c, and all various pieces of advice, with one 
general answer (I have three or four " general answers" 
for different classes of applicants, which my secretaries 
write in each case that arrives), viz. : " that you are obliged, 
and will take it into consideration." But be you the ulti- 
mate decider on every word that goes to press. Thank 



198 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [1843 

(rod, the decision could not be in better hands ; and at 
any rate yours must after all be the responsiblity.' 

Again a notice in the letters from Mrs. Arnold's family 
at Fox How tells of a visit there. 'You would, I am 
sure,' says the writer, ' have loved the Archbishop if you 
had seen his tenderness and kindness to all, and his readi- 
ness and pleasure in teaching and amusing the whole 
party. He is such a lover of natural history, that every 
ramble in the garden gives him matter on which to dwell 
and impart information.' Another member of the family 
adds, alluding to a later period, ' His delight in teaching- 
was very great. When the " Easy Lessons in Reasoning " 
came out he was at Fox How, and made us all his pupils, 
including my mother, whom he complimented on her 
quick-witted answers, and probing our minds, I must say, 
in a most searching manner.' 

The following notes, occasioned by Mr. W. Palmer's 
narrative of events connected with the ' Tracts for the 
Times ' were found among the Archbishop's papers : — 

'Mr. W. Palmer is quite right in recommending charity 
and courtesy of language, but it should be remembered 
that a most uncharitable and unjustifiable reproach to 
others may be conveyed by terms not applied to them, but 
to ourselves. For instance, a person was asked in Italy 
"whether Christians are tolerated in our country.*' The 
Spaniards and Italians limit that name to those of the 
Church of Rome ; and in like manner the " Unitarians " 
imply, by assuming that title, that we do not teach the 
Unity of the Deity. In like manner, whan we are told 
that the Emancipation Act struck horror into all friends 
of " religion," this implies that those who had all along 
advocated the measure on religious grounds, were in 
reality men of no religion. This is just as strongly and 
clearly implied as if the abusive epithet had been directly 
applied to them. Again, when " Church principles " is 
constantly applied to designate those who hold such and 



2Et. 56] LETTER TO LADY OSBORNE. 199 

such opinions (perhaps very right ones) on the subject, 
this is equivalent to telling all who differ from these that 
they do not maintain " Church principles," which they 
(mistakenly perhaps, but sincerely) profess to do. It is 
in vain to recommend charity if we do not ourselves set 
the example of it.' 

The following fragment of a letter to Lady Osborne, 
probably written about this time, is sufficiently charac- 
teristic : — 

' What a delightful thought, that of your residing in 
Dublin ! And is . it getting up a faction for me you are 
after ? No, I'll have no Whatelyites ! I think I could 
before now, if I had been so disposed, have raised myself 
into the leader of a party — that is, induced a certain 
number of asses to change their panniers. But I have no 
such ambition. I wish people to believe all the facts which 
I state on my own knowledge — because I state none which 
I have not ascertained to be true; and to listen to the 
reasons I give for my conclusions — because I never use 
any arguments which do not appear to me sound. And 
that is all the conformity I covet. Any one who tries to 
imitate me, is sure to be unlike me in the important cir- 
cumstance of being an imitator ; and no one can think as 
I do who does not think for himself. 

( But I must not write any more where I am not re- 
quired. Little do the Irish landowners know what a 
sword is now hanging by a hair over their heads, or how 
anxiously I am toiling, day after day, to keep it from fall- 
ing ! If the Poor Law Bill should pass in its present form, 
their estates will not be worth two years' purchase. If they 
and the public in general were to give me credit for one- 
half of what I have laboured to do and been ready to suffer 
for their benefit, in various matters, I should have more 
popularity than would be safe for me. 

c I would not say to one of less candour than yourself, 
for fear of being thought affected or fanatical, that in 
praying for the success of my efforts for the public good, I 



200 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1S44 

never omit to pray that I may meet with as much per- 
sonal mortification and disrepute as may be needful to 
wean me from an over-regard for human approbation ami 
popularity. 

The year 1844 opens, as usual, on scenes of active and 
unremitting labour, ecclesiastical, political, and literary. 
The death of the Archbishop of Cashel had added to the 
sphere of Dr. Whately's labours : hia province, which had 

only comprised Leinster. hot embracing Munster also. 
His triennial visitations or journeys round his province 
were, from this change, extended to fully half the country. 
These provincial tours, which were never entirely omitted 
throughout his life till the last year of it. now brought 
him frequently into Irish-speaking districts : and he never 
failed ro take this opportunity of urging on the clergy of 
these districts the importance of the study of the language. 
Such a conversation as the following would frequently 
take place : — 

1 Are any of your parishioners Irish-speakings Mr. ? ' 

* Yes. my Lord, nearly " i one-half, two-thirds, or as 

the case might be). 

4 Do you or your curate understand Irish ? ' 

'No, not a word.' 

4 1 am very sorry to hear it." the Archbishop would 
reply: 'how can you fulfil the duties you have un iertaken 
towards parishioners with vrora you cannot communi- 
cate ? ' 

' Oh. my Lord.' the answer would be. * all the Protestants 
speak English.* 

•' I should think so. indeed ! '' was the Archbish >p's reply. 
fc 'How could it be otherwise? How could they be Pro- 
testants at all. unless they alrea ::y knew the only ktnguage 
in which the Protestant clergy eoul : — them ? ' And 

then would follow an earnest exhortation t the incumbent 
to endeavour to rind some means of communicating with 
all who were resident in his parish, either by himself learn- 
ing the lan£"uao"e, or securing the services of assistants who 
did. And on the next tour., when the same place was vis: 



.ET. 57] ON SPIRITUALISM. 201 

a change for the better was usually observed, and increased 
attention paid to the claims of those who could only be ad- 
dressed through the medium of the Irish tongue. Thus, 
the Archbishop was doing continually much to promote 
the same objects, which were carried on in a different man- 
ner bv the venerable Irish Society, and other instrumen- 
talities. He was always of opinion that the way really to 
gain the attention of any people is by addressing them 
in their mother tongue ; and not, in the first instance, 
to urge on them the acquisition of a foreign language, 
whose use they cannot appreciate. When once they know 
how to read, and acquire a love of books, they will of them- 
selves be eager to learn a language which can furnish them 
with the knowledge they desire ; and in this manner, in 
proportion as the people are educated, a language possess- 
ing a current literature will ultimately take the place of 
one which has none. This may appear a digression, but 
it illustrates the characteristic diligence and earnestness 
with which the Archbishop applied himself to his rapidly 
increasing labours. 

*The letter which follows relates to a subject on which 
(and its allied topics) Dr. Whately has been charged with 
credulity. On such a matter it is far better to let the 
subject of a biography speak for himself. He was inva- 
riably opposed to the assumption of infallibility, and the 
dictation of things to be believed, by any human authority. 
It was his uniform maxim that no one can arrive at truth, 
in any sense worthy of the name, who does not discard such 
dictation, and examine for himself. But though apt to be 
sanguine as to the results of new discoveries in medical 
and similar sciences, it was by no means his habit to be 
led into extravagance in support of them. 

As to the modern notion of communications with the 
invisible world, or what is termed 6 spiritualism,' the reader 
may consult a paper in the recently published ' Extracts 
from his Common-place Book 5 (p. 381), one of the last 
which he regularly dictated, and which has been published 
to show what his deliberate opinion on this point was. As 
an enquirer, he did not venture to reject what seemed to 



202 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1844 

him to have some, though by no means conclusive, evi- 
dence in its support : as a religious man, he could not but 
maintain that, if there was any truth in it, it was pre- 
sumptuous, and, perhaps, within the actual prohibition of 
Scripture.* 

Letter to a Friend on the subject of Animal Magnetism. 

' October 1844. 

6 1 have been for some time waiting for leisure to write 
to you, being desirous of asking a question of you as a man 
curious about philosophical investigations : viz. whether 
you are thoroughly satisfied, from sufficient enquiry re- 
specting animal magnetism, that there is nothing at all 
in it, but that all the phenomena recorded are either 
fabrications and exaggerations, or else may be explained 
as 1 st, imagination ; 2nd, fraud ; or 3rd, accident. 

i I say from sufficient enquiry, because it has surely long 
since been beyond being pooh-poohed out of court as a 
thing not worth enquiring about. And I have long since 
been seeking for a satisfactory solution of all that is 
credibly reported (setting aside flying rumours) on the 
hypothesis of fancy or chance, or collusive trick. And 
this, perhaps, you can supply. 

' I was a good deal staggered, several years ago, by Dr. 
Daubeny telling me, soon after his tour in Germany, that 
he had conversed on the subject with great numbers of 
scientific men there, some of whom reported or admitted 
great marvels, which others of them utterly derided and 
reprobated ; but that he had never met with one — advo- 
cate or opponent — who did not believe that there was 
something in it ; I mean, something that could not be ex- 
plained on any of those hypotheses I have alluded to. 

< 1 am not prepared (which seems to be 's idea) to 

refuse to listen to evidence for what is unaccountable ; 
because there are so many things which I cannot help be- 
lieving (and which to the vulgar seem not at all wonder- 
ful, because they are accustomed to them), in which I am 
totally unable to perceive any connection of cause and 



iET. 57] OX ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 203 

effect, and can only witness facts. E. g. take the case of 
mineral magnetism ; it is very well to talk of a magnetic 
fluid (and for aught I know there may be a gravitating 
fluid also) which operates equally through a vacuum, or 
air, or a table, but this is all mere guess. All we know 
is, that some kinds, and not others, of iron ore, ha^e a 
property, which they can impart by contact to iron, which 
will or will not retain that property, according to certain 
laws, and may be deprived of it again, or not, according 
to certain other laws; which laws have been practically 
ascertained, after ages of investigation. But if a mineral 
magnet were now for the first time discovered, and its 
phenomena recorded, how many would at once reject the 
whole as an idle tale ! As for all religious considerations, 
they appear to me to offer no ground of contrast or com- 
parison of any kind with the alleged phenomena of mineral 
magnetism, any more than if there were a question as to 
the comparative value of steam and some other motive 
power, and some one were to contrast these with Christian 
motives ; or should tell me, if there were a question about 
the illuminating powers of gas, or some other proposed 
substitute — of the light of the Gospel. 

' The only point of contact between religion and these 
alleged phenomena is, that there has been an attempt made 
by some to explain the Scripture miracles by physical 
agency; and again by others, to represent these pheno- 
mena as Satanic agency. The like takes place, and ever 
will, on the announcement of every new set of facts or 
fictions. Astronomy, geology, physiology (by Mr. Law- 
rence), Greek-criticism — in short everything, is taken up 
by the adversaries of Christianity as a weapon of offence, 
and dreaded by its weak advocates. Probably just such 

people as and , if they had lived in Italy some 

ages back, would have exhorted all people not to look 
through Galileo's telescope, or listen to what he said ; and 
so of the rest. But a person possessing real faith will 
be fully convinced that whatever suppressed physical fact 
seems to militate against his religion will be proved, by 
physical investigation, either to be unreal, or else recon- 



204 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1844-5 

cilable with his religion. If I were to found a church, 
one of my articles would be, that it is not allowable to 
bring forward Scripture, or any religious considerations 
at all, to prove or disprove any physical theory, or any 
but religious and moral conclusions. 

6 Then, as for danger, I cannot conceive how any one 
can apprehend more danger from doubt, enquiry, inves- 
tigation, and consequent knowledge, than from adopting a 
conclusion at once without enquiry and in utter ignorance. 
When opium was first heard of (I know not when, but 
there must have been such a time) the accounts of its 
effects must have appeared excessively strange, and (which 
they still are, though people overlook them) quite unac- 
countable. Now any one who should, then, have suspected 
that they might be true, and that if so it must be a power- 
ful, and, of course, a very dangerous agent, would not surely 
have been in more danger than one who should at once 
have pronounced it impossible that any drug could produce 
such effects. There are some few cases, it is supposed, in 
which that strange agent, the nitrous-oxyde gas, might 
produce very bad effects. Xow, which would be in the 
less danger, one who should be inclined to believe in its 
effects, or one who should agree with Dr. Buckland, who 
stoutly maintains (or at least did) that it is perfectly inert, 
and that all we hear of its effects is pure fiction or fancy ? 
My conclusion is, therefore, that animal magnetism is de- 
cidedly worthy of enquiry, and the delusion, if it be such, 
of exposure. And this if you can furnish you will deserve 
well of mankind. Xo one is bound (I should observe) to 
prove actual fraud or delusion in each individual case, only 
to show its possibility. And on the other hand, the clearest 
proof of imposition in any number of cases, if there are 
others to which that solution will not apply, proves nothing 
in respect of these latter. Hume's chief argument against 
miracles universally is, that there are plenty of sham ones : 
he might as well have argued from the numbers of forged 
bank notes that there are none genuine. I wish to adopt 
finally the conclusions that shall imply the least ere- 



2Et. 58] TRIBUTE TO BISHOP COPLESTOX. 205 

dulity. But when will people be brought to understand 
that credulity and incredulity are the same ? ' 

The following tribute to his former tutor and old friend, 
Bishop Copleston, is too interesting to be omitted ; it ac- 
companied a copy of some publication, sent him in the 
following year — 1845. 

'Dublin: July 7, 18-15. 

6 My dear Lord, I am bound to send, and you to re- 
ceive, as a kind of lord of the soil, every production of my 
pen, as a token of acknowledgment that from you I have 
derived the main principles on which I have acted and 
speculated through life. 

6 Not that I have adopted anything from you, implicitly 
and on authority, but from conviction produced by the 
reasons you adduced. This, however, rather increases the 
obligation ; since you furnished me not only with the 
theorems but the demonstrations ; not only the fruits but 
the trees that bore them. 

6 It cannot, indeed, be proved that I should not have 
embraced the very same principles if I had never known 
you ; and, in like manner, no one can prove that the battle 
of Waterloo would not have been fought and won, if the 
Duke of Wellington had been killed the day before : but 
still, the fact remains that the duke did actually gain that 
battle. And it is no less a fact that my principles actually 
were learnt from you. 

' When it happens that we completely concur as to the 
application of any principle, it is so much the more agree- 
able ; but in all cases the law remains in force, that " what- 
soever a man soweth, that also shall he reap : " and the 
credit or the discredit of having myself, to reckon among 
your w r orks, must in justice appertain to you. 

; Believe me to be, at the end of forty years, 

6 Your grateful and affectionate friend and pupil, 

' Ed. Dublin.' 

The following extract bears the same date, and seems 
to have been sent to Mr. Senior in the course of this year : 



206 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELT. [l845-€ 

' Airs. Whately, in going through the village :f Stillor- 
gan from time to time to look after the poor, always urges 
them to the practice of neatness as far as their ] 
will admit, though often with no great suecr-s. 

6 One poor woman who is infirm and sickly, an 3 : nly 
able to do about a month's work in the year, was found, 
when Mrs. Whately called the other day. to have got some 
neighbour to whitewash the walls of her cabin, and she 
had hung up some prints which some one had given 
her. swept her floor, and cleaned all her little articles of 
furniture, mended all rents in her poor garments, and 
kept her person and house very neat. She was congratu- 
lated on this; but it appeared she had lost her all: uranee 
of food by it. The relieving officer, on stepping intc her 
cabin, observed, " Oh, you seem to be very comfortable 
here ! " and thereupon her allowance was s: jppe 1 ! Several 
of her neighbours, not at all poorer, but living in a state 
of swinish filth and disorder, had their allowance con- 
tinned! Thus, among many other great evils, the out- 
door relief system is made to operate as a direct bounty 
on squalid carelessness and brutish habits, and as a 
penalty on civilisation and efforts aftei cleanliness and 
decency. 

'You may perhaps find means to communicate this 
specimen case to those to whom i: may h usefully in- 
structive.' 

In the year following (1846), the Archbishop again 

visited the continent with his family, and spent a ah rt 
time among the beautiful scenery of the Saxon Switzerl; 
We have a few reminiscences of this journey. :: : m a son of 
Dr. Arnold, who accompanied the Archbishop and his 
family on this tour. 

e The Archbishop,' he writes, 'travelled on the continent 
in 1846. I was of the party, and in my journal I find a 
record of a curious circumstance which occurred in I 
We were travelling post from Prague to Ratisl ml On 
night of the 30th July, we slept at Waldmiinchen : and in 
order to avoid delay at the post houses the next day. notice 



JEt. 59] TOUR TO SAXONY. 207 

was sent along the road that evening that our party 
was coming on, and would require so many horses. It 
seems that the approach of a bishop became generally 
known; for the next day, as the Archbishop's carriage 
passed, nearly all the people at work in the fields by the 
road side, as soon as they caught sight of the three-cornered 
hat, left off working and went down on their knees, doubt- 
less in the hope of receiving an episcopal benediction. 
At the little town of Eotz, as the Archbishop was standing 
in the street, while the horses were being changed, a 
wretched-looking man came up, threw himself on his 
knees in the mud before him, and with clasped hands and 
in supplicating accents began to mumble forth entreaties 
which our imperfect knowledge of German did not permit 
us to understand. The Archbishop looked at him askance, 
and with curious eye, as if he were some remarkable 
natural phenomenon, and then abruptly turned away. 
The peasantry in this part of Bavaria seemed to be, at 
that time, at any rate, a squalid, miserable, abject race, 
and evidently to their simple minds a bishop was a 
bishop. 

6 At Schandau in the Saxon Switzerland, Edward and I 
had a good day's fishing in the little river that runs through 
that charming valley. Towards the evening the Arch- 
bishop joined us, and after looking on for a little while, 
took Edward's rod out of his hand, and after a few casts 
landed a fine grayling, the best fish killed that day. . . . 
The Archbishop relished with a hearty natural enjoyment 
all out-of-door sports and amusements, especially if they 
illustrated any novel principle, or required particular 
ingenuity in the use of them. Thus he delighted in making 
and using imitations of the Australian "wumerah" or 
throwing-stick, and also in throwing the "boomerang," a 
semicircular piece of wood which hits with great force 
when well thrown, and returns to the thrower's hand. 

6 This recalls to my recollection an incident in his former 
journey abroad in 1839. At Rapperschwyl, on the lake 
of Zurich, while the horses were being harnessed, he 
amused himself by teaching a number of boys at play on 



208 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1847 

the border of the lake, by dumb show (for he spoke no 
German), to throw the spear in the Australian fashion; 
and was highly delighted when he saw how eagerly they 
entered into the new diversion.' 

The year 1847 was one of peculiar trial to all who were 
living and working for Ireland ; Dr. Whately's attention 
was now earnestly and painfully occupied by the distress, 
which was beginning to assume a more alarming form, 
and which called forth his energies in a new direction. 

*It was the fate of Dr. Whately. of which these pages have 
already afforded ample evidence, to have portions of his 
character and opinions much misunderstood: and mis- 
understood partly in consequence of his own overmastering 
tendency to outspokenness. He could never refrain — h^ 
held it an absolute duty not to refrain — from bringing 
forth his entire opinions on a given subject to its utmost 
extent ; he would cut off. as it were purposely, all those 
accommodating qualifications by which persons are in 
general accustomed to guard unpopular avowals of opinion. 
In his abhorrence of everything approaching 'reserve ' or 
'casuistry 3 he would carry these tendencies even beyond 
reasonable limits, and where he would himself, in practice. 
have admitted modifications of his doctrine, he would 
have deemed it a surrender to the enemy to allow, in 
theory, of the possibility of such modifications. In nothing 
were these peculiarities more conspicuous than in his 
contest and language on the Poor-Law question, and in 
relation to charities in general. His condemnation of the 
English system, such as it had been in his youth, was 
absolute and uncompromising. His argaments against 
them extended to the very principle of Poor Law itself. 
nor would he therefore shrink from urging them. It was 
not unnatural that so daring an assailant of rooted preju- 
dices, of the beneficent class, should be judged in some 
degree by his own language, and set down as a man of 
6 hard-hearted ' opinions, if not hard-hearted in conduct. 
And this may be a justification for a brief allusion to a 
subject which, in ordinary biographies, is best passed over 



.!>. 60] DISTRESS IN IRELAND. 2G9 

in silence, as a portion of the great account between man 
and his Maker, not between the citizen and the world. It 
may be worth while to show how one who w 7 rote and 
thought like Dr. Whately practically interpreted his own 
doctrines on ' charity.' 

' Those who knew the Archbishop well/ writes one of 
his most valued and trusted helpers, ' could not fail to 
observe in him a strong development of various traits of 
character not often found combined in such equal propor- 
tions — large-hearted munificence in affording relief for 
distress, with careful investigation as to the merits of each 
case., and sound judgment and discrimination as to the 
best way of conferring the benefit ; readiness to contribute 
openly and largely to public institutions for the promotion 
of religious or charitable objects, with much more exten- 
sive liberality to private cases of destitution or pressure. 
These were brought before him by his chaplains separately, 
or by others, as each individually happened to come to the 
knowledge of them ; and generally the members of his 
own family, and often all except the immediate dispensers 
of the bounty, were left in complete ignorance of the 
matter. When occasion required, he gave largely of his 
time, attention, and invaluable counsel, as well as of his 
money, for the alleviation or effectual remedy of distress.' 

*He has left little or no record of this in showy bequests 
and large endowments. He always advocated the wisdom 
as well as duty of giving as much as can be given while 
the donor can see it spent according to his wishes, and 
with the exercise of real liberality and self-denial on his 
part. Upon this principle he always acted ; and many 
churches and schools built in his dioceses by help of liberal 
subscriptions from his purse ; many societies either founded 
or largely supported by him, bear real, though silent, wit- 
ness to his open-handedness in giving. For more than thirty 
years he continued to pay 100/. per annum to maintain a 
chair of Political Economy in the University of Dublin ; and 
indeed might have endowed it at less cost to himself ; but, 
acting consistently on his fixed principle, he preferred 
paying the Professor out of his income. He left behind 

P 



210 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1847 

liim no accumulated savings ; the larger part of the pro- 
vision which he made for his family being effected by life 
insurances, the premiums on which were met by his 
private means. 

In all his gifts, moreover, he was accustomed to make 
strict enquiry into the merits of the case ; ill considered 
and indiscriminate giving was a thing which he always 
denounced as one of the most mischievous uses that can 
be made of money.* 

It may not be out of place here, in speaking of the 
Archbishop's charities, to quote an extract from a friend's 
notebook, on his objection to the practice of giving alms 
in the street. 

6 1 have heard him say,' writes his friend, ' that whatever 
you pay a man to do, that he will do ; if you pay him to 
work, he will work, and if you pay him to beg, he will beg. 
Dr. Churchill told my wife that he had heard him say, " I 
have given away forty thousand pounds since I came to 
the see, and I thank God I never gave a penny to a beggar 
in the street." 

( Giving to beggars, he often added, is, in fact, paying 
a number of wretched beings to live in idleness and filth, 
and to neglect and ill-treat the miserable children whose 
sufferings form part of their stock in trade.' 

But contributions to matters of public utility did not 
constitute the characteristic part of Dr. Whately's benefi- 
cence. His private charities, compared with the amount 
of his salary and his absence of fortune, were literally 
princely. They were for the most part given not on 
system, but on the spur of the occasion, called forth by 
peculiar instances of want and peculiar calls for sympathy. 
Of beneficence like this the records are necessarily few ; 
some who are alive, and more who are deceased, could 
testify to the measure and the spirit of their Archbishop's 
liberality. But of such he kept no nominal record. 
' Many instances have come to my knowledge,' says one of 
those most intimate with him, ' in which large sums, from 
100J. to 1000^., were given by him quite privately.' His 
agent says that in his book such entries as ' To a clergy- 



Mt. 60] HIS MUNIFICENCE. 211 

man, 200/. ; to a gentleman, 100/. ; cash given away, 50L ; ' 
are not uncommon. He often provided poor rectors with 
the means of paying a curate; and frequently, through 
aid timely and delicately given, enabled clergymen whom 
he saw overworked and under paid, to recruit their health 
by holiday and change of scene. Nor were the recipients 
of his generosity confined to his own profession and to the 
literary class, with the struggling members of which his 
sympathies were strong. But more than enough has 
perhaps been said on a subject only to be slightly touched. 
It may be added, by way of summary, that being a man 
of simple tastes and inexpensive life, he accumulated 
nothing from the income of his Archbishopric, and left to 
his family nothing beyond his own small fortune and his 
insurances. Nor did he supplement, in their favour, his 
own narrow means out of the public means. He has been 
accused, in his distribution of Church patronage, of 
favouring men of his own ' set,' that is, of his own intel- 
lectual following; of 'jobbing,' or personal motives, 
never. 

The winter of 1847-8 was one of deep and painful 
anxiety. The Irish famine had reached its height. The 
failure of the potato crop through the mysterious blight, 
during a succession of seasons, had come upon a people 
wholly dependent upon this, the cheapest and simplest 
food, as their staff of life. Their normal condition was 
only just raised above starvation ; and when the years of 
dearth came, nothing but starvation remained for them to 
sink to. No one who passed the years 1846, 1847, and 
1848 in Ireland can ever forget that terrible life and death 
struggle of a whole nation. How earnestly the Archbishop 
exerted himself to supply the required aid to the utmost, 
all who were on the spot must well remember: and how 
indefatigably she who was the sharer of his labours lent 
herself to the same service, taxing her often failing strength 
to the uttermost, needs not to be recalled to the mind 
either of those who laboured with her, or of those who 
were the recipients of her benevolence. She became 
from that time forth more actively associated than ever 

p2 



212 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1847 

in the various organisations formed to promote the welfare, 
temporal and spiritual, of the distressed, the ignorant, the 
homeless and the erring ; and how many important works 
of charity sprang out of the deep misery of those years of 
famine, many can now testify with earnest gratitude to 
Him who thus brought good out of what seemed at first 
unmixed evil. 

In the session of 1847, the Archbishop was again in 
London, actively endeavouring to stem the tide of public 
feeling, which had taken a turn threatening much evil to 
Ireland. 

The English public, from a mixture of benevolence and 
impatience — pity for the sufferers and hopelessness of any 
real amelioration of their condition — were eager to bring 
the whole Poor-law system to bear on Ireland. The state 
of that country was such as to render the increased pres- 
sure almost intolerable. There were no resources to meet 
it. The increased rates, while they could not adequately 
alleviate distress, bore most severely on the classes least 
able to endure the burden and hardest to help under it — 
the smaller proprietors and householders, and the clergy. 
Of the formei', many who had been independent were re- 
duced to actual pauperism by the rates ; the latter had to 
struggle through an ordeal enough to sink the stoutest 
spirit. Few to this day have any idea of the suffering 
endured, and generally most patiently and bravely en- 
dured, by a large number of the Irish country clergy in 
those years of famine ; striving in the midst of their own 
deep poverty to assist the indigent, their own income often 
rendered scarce more than nominal from the nonpayment 
of their rent-charge, and yet expected to pay the full 
amount of increased poor-rates. In very many cases they 
and their families were reduced so low as to be in want of 
the very necessaries of life. Their condition is this respect 
having: become known to the members of the Ladies' 
General Belief Association, in the course of their corre- 
spondence on the subject of the distress in their respective 
parishes, the idea was suggested, in the early part of 1849, 
of forming a separate Committee for their special relief. 



^t. GO] HIS MEASURES FOU BELIEF. 213 

Of this movement the Archbishop was, in fact, the origi- 
nator and patron, commencing the fund by a donation of 
100/., on the 21st of April, 1849; and during the three 
years of the Committee's operations, he continued his un- 
wearied attendance at its meetings, and his warm sympathy 
with the cases of deep distress which from time to time 
came under its notice. ' The united contributions of Mrs. 
Whately and himself to the fund,' writes the secretary of 
the Committee, ' exceeded 4706. ; the total amount received 
and disbursed nearly reached 4,600/.' Dr. Whately's total 
contributions towards the distress of 1848-9 have been 
reckoned at 8,000/., but such estimates must be conjec- 
tural. 

The following letter to Mr. Senior is evidently suggested 
by the distress, though on a different point : — 

6 My dear S., — What an admirable opportunity the pre- 
sent distress affords of paying the Irish priests ! The 
starving population would be more than ever grateful for 
being relieved of the burden. The very poorest are not 
allowed to enter a chapel without paying something, though 
the halfpence which are now a severe tax on those who 
hardly get a meal a day must afford a wretched subsistence 
to the priests, and yet the priests must wring from them 
this miserable pittance. 

6 But I suppose and would do their best to 

prevent such a measure, except in the way of taking the 
funds from the Protestant Establishment; a plan than 
which Satan himself could not devise a more effectual one 
for keeping up and exasperating religious animosities in 
this truly wretched country. Each successive government 
seems ambitious to outstrip its predecessor in the career 
of folly.' 

In this year the Archbishop was again greatly occupied 
with the Poor-law. The government were desirous of in- 
troducing a bill for out-door relief in Ireland. This the 
Archbishop, in conjunction with some few others, among 



214 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1847 

whom Lord Monteagle was the principal, steadily opposed. 
On the 26th of March, 1847, a debate took place on a 
motion of Lord Monteagle for a select committee to be 
held on this subject and other matters. His speech is an 
important one, and the Archbishop's name appears with 
those of Lords Radnor, Monteagle and Mountcashel, in 
the signatures to a protest against the measure of out-door 
relief. 

The bill was nevertheless passed, the clause of out-door 
relief being included in the Poor Relief Extension Act, 
which was passed in June 1847. The numbers relieved 
out of the workhouse, at first very large, diminished from 
800,000, in July 1848, to about 2,000 only at the end of 
1850. (Ed. Rev. vol. 93, p. 246.) 

'March 9, 1847. 

*My dear Mrs. Arnold,— I cannot forbear expressing 
the high admiration I feel for the justice of your cha- 
racter. It is what I have long admired in you; but the 
recent occurrences have forced it the more on my notice. 
My wife has told me, of late years, that she used to wonder 
at my dwelling so much on justice as the highest virtue, 
but that now she understands and agrees with me. Other 
virtues depend in some degree on several tendencies, but 
the proper function of what the Phrenologists call the 
organ of conscientiousness, is to decide and do what is 
right, simply for that reason. And the formula for calling 
this organ into play, is that which is furnished us by the 
highest authority; — to put oneself in another's place, and 
consider what we should think fair then. This formula 
would be of no use if we had not the organ, but the organ 
will often not act aright without th e formula ; which, yet, 
is very seldom thought of in practice. 

6 A person may sometimes be found having the material, 
as it were, of not only a good but a great character, of a 
kind of heroic virtue who yet, for want of habitually 
applying that formula in every-day transactions, will not 
even escape deserved censure. There is a kind of man, 
who, having fervent aspirations after pre-eminent excel- 



tEt. 60] LETTER TO MRS. ARNOLD. 215 

lence, an enthusiastic and perhaps somewhat romantic 
longing after distinguished virtue, frames to himself the 
idea of a life, which is a kind of magnificent epic poem 
with himself for the hero ; and deigns not to pay suffici- 
ently sedulous attention to some humbler common duties. 
He becomes, if he have a good deal of self-confidence, so 
full of himself, his high destinies, his own claims, his own 
feelings, that he somewhat overlooks what is due to the 
claims and the feelings of others. What is done for him 
he receives very much as a matter of course ; and when 
anything is refused him, or any obstacle placed in his 
path, he is fiercely indignant, as having a great wrong 
done him. And yet he will never suspect himself of being 
unjust, because he never designs to be so, but to assign to 
all their due ; only he wt.11 not estimate fairly w T hat is due 
to others and to himself; nor does he* conceive himself 
capable, accordingly, of being deficient in gratitude, be- 
cause he is very grateful to those who honour him, and to 
whom, perhaps, no gratitude is really due. 

'It seems odd to say it, but so it is, that one is prone 
not only to feel resentment against those whom we must 
admit, on reflection, to have done us no wrong (a success- 
ful rival for instance, or one whose judgment was opposed 
to ours, and who has proved to be in the right, &c), but 
also to feel gratitude to those whose judgment is flattering 
to us, and has benefited us. When, for instance, Lord Grey 
appointed me archbishop, I knew that he could have no 
partiality — no desire to benefit me, and, for that very 
reason, I was the more gratified by the honour of his 
choice, from knowing, that, whether mistaken in it or not, 
he could have no motive but a wish to serve the public, by 
fixing on the fittest man. I was careful to place before 
me that I was under no obligation to him, else I might 
have been more disposed to feel grateful to him than if he 
had had some private regard for me, and had preferred 
me partly for that reason. But it requires a vigilant and 
steady adherence to the principles of strict justice to view 
things in that light. 

6 Such a kind of character as I have described — the hero 



216 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY, [1847 

of his own epic — is not a common one, but it is one worth 
reflecting on nevertheless, because it is one of great capa- 
bilities. 

' Ever yours most truly, 

' Ed. Whately.' 

The following letter is on a very different subject. The 
Archbishop had seen advertised a translation of the works 
of George Sand, published under the sanction of a clergy- 
man, to whom, though personally unknown, he addressed 
this letter : — 

' Palace, Dublin : October 1847. 

6 Rev. and Dear Sir, — I see advertised a translation of 
the works of George Sand, patronised by you. 

' It is not my practice to interfere in other people's 
affairs. But by your having dedicated a volume to me, 
my name has been in some degree mixed up with yours ; 
and some persons may naturally suppose that all the pub- 
lications you put forth or patronise are in some degree 
sanctioned by me : and it may happen that I may eventu- 
ally be under the unpleasant necessity of publicly disavow- 
ing all connexion with them, or approbation of them. This 
being the case, I trust you will see the propriety of my 
adverting to the subject, first, privately. 

* I cannot understand how it can be safe or allowable to 
bring such works before the public eye. If indeed the 
English were universally pure and firm in their moral 
principles, it might perhaps be worth while to publish 
some portions of works popular in France, by way of 
warning, as to the low tone of morality there prevalent. 

6 But I cannot think that we are, universally, in a state 
to bear such an experiment. I have even known English 
persons of what is called respectable character, who are 
little or nothing shocked at the antichristian and profli- 
gate character of that woman's writings, and who even 
speak of their tendency to regenerate society and place 
it on an entirely new footing ! And it is true, a sort of 
regeneration would take place, if people were to act on the 



&t. 60] OX THE WORKS OF GEORGE SAND. 217 

principles she recommends. Society would be something 
like that of Norfolk Island, decorated with a varnish of 
ranting sentimentality. It would be a kind of ragout of 
putrid meat, with an attempt to mitigate its fetor by a 
profuse seasoning of strong spices. 

' Such at least is the impression produced on my mind 
by the little I have read of her works. I cannot boast of 
being well versed in them. But it is not necessary to wade 
all through a heap of mud in order to be satisfied of its 
loathsomeness. I read a good part of what was pointed 
out to me as the least exceptionable, and even commended 
by some, as exhibiting pure and high morality. 

6 I must say that the genius for which she is by some 
celebrated seems to me greatly overrated. Her tales are 
redeemed from fiat silliness only by striking situations 
brought about by the most unnatural and absurd extrava- 
gances. This, however, is a question of taste, on which 
there is no room for disputing ; but what revolted me the 
most was, that the characters whom she intends to be 
models of excellence, are such that if all the world were 
like them it would be a Pandemonium. They lie and 
cheat from morning till night. 

' Now if it be proposed to translate such works, omitting 
the foulest parts, this, I conceive, would be taking away 
from them their moral. The moral in fact is that " a cor- 
rupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit ; " — that such and such 
are the practical consequences of such and such principles. 
If therefore there are any such omissions made for de- 
cency's sake, at least it ought to be added in a note, that 
the original contains the description of such conduct as 
naturally flows from such principles, and which is too bad 
for publication. Else the principles may be received by 
incautious youth with too much favour. 

6 If it be thought right to exhibit for curiosity, at some 
horticultural show r , a plant of deadly nightshade, and to 
clear it of the berries, lest some of the spectators should 
incautiously taste them, at least the plant ought to be 
labelled "poisonous," lest they should imprudently give 
it a place in their gardens. 



218 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1847 

4 But I cannot think that in any way it can be desirable 
that such a work should be published — especially under 
such auspices. A strict regard for the principles of mo- 
rality and religion, and for delicacy, may be fairly expected 
at least from clergymen and ladies, if anywhere. w If the 
salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned ? " 
Excuse my saying, therefore, that it would be with me a 
sufficient reason to preclude a man from officiating in my 
diocese, that he had taken part in the publication of such 
immoral works. Over you I do not pretend to have any 
control ; but for the reason mentioned in the beginning, it 
may be necessary for me to be able to say that I remon- 
strated against such a publication. 

' Yours, &c. 

' Ed. Dublin.' 

It was in this year that the Statistical Society of Dublin 
was first founded. The Archbishop cordially supported it, 
and his address at the conclusion of the first session showed 
the interest he took in its aims and objects. He concluded 
the address with an expression of hope that ' they would 
live to witness the good fruits of their exertions in the 
diffusion of sounder notions, on one of the most impor- 
tant, one of the most interesting, and at the present period, 
one of the most vitally essential subjects on which the 
human mind in this country could possibly be em- 
ployed.' 

When, three years later (in November 1850), the Social 
Inquiry Society, now amalgamated with the Statistical, was 
founded, the Archbishop entered into it with the most 
lively interest, accepted the presidentship of the society, 
subscribed munificently to its funds, and delivered the ad- 
dress at its first social meeting; in which he remarked 
that the great advantage of such a society was, that they 
could deliberate on each subject according to its own 
merits, and through the means of the investigations which 
they conducted, and the observations made as to the result 
of them, they might so far affect public opinion as to have 
ultimately measures ready prepared with all that discus- 



JEt. 60] FORMATION OF THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY. 219 

sion which Parliament could not and would not afford to 
them, and thus the foundations be laid of such improve- 
ments in their social condition as they could never expect 
from any parliament existing in a free country, which 
would always be open to the disadvantage of party contests 
for power. 



220 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1848-9 



CHAPTER IX. 

1848—1851. 

Marriage of his third Daughter — Paper on Public Executions — Letter to 
Dr. Hinds on Religious Difficulties — Family anxieties of the Archbishop 
— Illness of his son — Accompanies his family on their journey to Nice, 
but leaves them at Paris — Letters to Mrs. Hill on literary matters — 
Spends part of the summer with his family at Cromer — Miss Anna 
G-urney — His friendship for Mrs. Hill — Letter to Mrs. Arnold — The 
Papal Aggression — Publishes the ' Cautions for the Times ' — Correspon- 
dence with the Bishop of Oxford on the Papal Aggression — Letter to 
Mrs. Hill — Letter to Dr. Hinds on the Marriage Laws — His suggestions 
for a Universal Coinage — Father Ignatius — His Interview with the 
Archbishop — Letter to Mrs. Arnold on the State of Ireland — Letter to 
Mrs. Arnold on her Proposal to answer the ' Creeds of Christendom ' — 
Attends the Session — Harassed by Family Anxieties — Letter to Mrs. 
Hill on the Spread of Mormonism. 

The letters, at the beginning of this period, need not much 
explanation. Constantly engaged in literary undertakings, 
besides his own pressing avocations, and often referred to 
by his friends on questions, embracing a vast range of sub- 
jects, political, religious, literary, and practically scientific, 
it is almost impossible to give anything like a resume of 
the Archbishop's correspondence. At this time, he was 
suffering much from a sprained ankle, which he feared 
would produce serious consequences ; but though slow, his 
recovery was complete. 

The year 1848 brought an event in the Archbishop's 
domestic circle, which contributed more than any other 
to the happiness of his later life, and was a source of ever 
increasing comfort and blessing to him. This was the 
marriage of his third daughter with Charles Brent Wale, 
of Shelford, Cambridgeshire, which took place in Septem- 
ber of this year. In his son-in-law he gained a valued 



j£t. 62] ON PUBLIC EXECUTIONS. 221 

friend, coadjutor, and companion, possessed of qualities of 
mind and heart of no common order, who was fully capable 
of appreciating his powers and entering into his pursuits 
and interests, and whose society and friendship were the 
solace of his declining years ; whom he prized and valued 
beyond most of those still left to him upon earth, and 
whose life of earnest but unpretending Christian usefulness 
was not long to outlast that of his father-in-law. The cor- 
respondence with this valued friend and connexion was 
very full and frequent through life, when they were apart ; 
but the nature of it was so strictly domestic and private, 
that for the most part it was considered unsuitable for 
publication. Few other events occurred that are worthy 
of special record, throughout the course of this year and 
the following, except such as his letters give. 

On Public Executions. 

(Date uncertain, but supposed to "be in 1849.) 

tf Mr. Editor, — I cannot altogether coincide with your 
correspondent A. on the subject of public executions; 
though he seems to admit what has long been forcibly 
impressed on my mind, the very great mischief often 
done by the public display of triumphant penitence which 
so often takes place at them. I do not design to enter 
into the question of the efficacy of deathbed repentance. 
Supposing the doctrine to be an essential part of the 
Christian religion, we cannot be (as your correspondent 
observes) justified by any fear of dangerous consequences 
in suppressing or denying it. But if the danger consists, 
as is the case in the public display which the writer of 
the " Times " complains of — if the evil consequences may 
be averted hj merely avoiding the exhibition of these too 
striking scenes — then surely no regard for Christian duty 
calls on us to incur wantonly a useless danger. 

'If the whole of a public execution were removed to 
such a distance from the crowd as to exclude them from 
hearing any of the " last dying speech," &c, which for the 
most part do such incalculable hurt, and if nothing were 



222 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1849 

presented to their eyes but the distant view of the criminal 
launched from the fatal drop, our mode of conducting an 
execution would be as perfect as public execution can be. 
All spiritual consolation which a Christian minister might 
think himself authorised and bound to afford, might then 
be afforded in private to the only person (the condemned 
criminal himself) to whom it is even pretended it can be 
useful or safe. For no one can think that the doctrine 
of the efficacy of dying repentance can be edifying to any 
one except the dying man. 

' And if any of the consolation administered were rash 
and ill-grounded, at least no harm would be done by it, so 
long as it was private ; since no one would be encouraged 
by it (as I fear is too often the case now) to go on in 
criminal courses. It is much to be apprehended that some 
of that rashness I have alluded to in cherishing this ill- 
founded confidence in the dying is to be found where one 
would least expect it. I would not take upon me to say 
that no divines, even of the Church of England, have ever 
been so ignorant or unthinking as to resort to those topics 
your correspondent alludes to — the case of the penitent 
thief, and that of the labourers called at the eleventh 
hour ; though a very humble portion of learning and in- 
telligence would suffice to show that these are far indeed 
from being parallel to the cases with which they are 
compared. 

6 The labourers in the vineyard had been standing idle 
till the eleventh hour because no man had hired them ; 
they are not represented as being at all in fault, as having 
been invited before and refused to come. Whatever, 
therefore, we may judge of the case of a hardened sinner 
repenting at the approach of death, it is plain it can have 
no sort of connexion with this parable. And no less 
foreign to the purpose is the case of the thief on the 
cross. He acknowledged as his Saviour and Lord, about 
to enter on a kingdom, One whom he saw perishing by 
an ignominious death amid the exulting taunts of his 
enemies and the despairing lamentations of his disciples. 
Such a strength of faith as this not many of us perhaps 



JEt. 62] OX RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 22-3 

possess ; but it is what no one in the present day can 
possibly display. 

* I have proposed what seems to me a great improve- 
ment in our public executions. But, surely, it would be 
much better if all executions were private. That fami- 
liarity which breeds contempt is most effectually gene- 
rated in the unthinking and profligate mobs which assemble 
for the enjoyment of what they call "Hang Fair/' and 
who are chiefly anxious to see a spirited and becoming 
submission to death, in those who (in common with many 
of the spectators) have long been accustomed to regard 
hanging as their natural death. I invite your readers to 
a fuller discussion of this important subject from those of 
more leisure and more knowledge than I profess ; and 
am, ccc, &c. 

* Clekicus.' 

'Dublin: Feast of St. Pancake, 1849. 

; My dear Hinds, — I write this to you instead of to 



because you will perhaps modify or amplify what I say. 

6 There is a certain morbid state of mind which I sup- 
pose few thoughtful persons have ever been wholly exempt 
from throughout the whole of life, except those who 
with a sanguine temperament have " Hope large and 
Cautiousness small." I mean a tendency to unreasonable 
doubts and suspicions, especially on any point whereon 
we are the most anxious to feel fully assured. This, 
like any tendency when it goes beyond a certain point, 
may become monomania. But in a minor degree most 
people have been, at some time or other, thus haunted. 
In some, it takes the turn of fancying oneself about to be 
ruined ; in some, of all men being hostile and conspiring 
against one ; in some, of ill usage from those dearest to 
us. There was one of my clergy who was rational ex- 
cept on one point; he fancied his wife (whom he doted 
on) was unfaithful, and was trying to poison him. One 
patient I remember hearing of, whose own reason and 
that of his friends never could satisfy him that his person 
was clean ; and having a great horror of dirt, he was all 



2 24 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1849 

day washing and scrubbing his unfortunate carcase, till 
he at length caught his death of cold. And some again 
are haunted with groundless fear for the safety of a he- 
loved child, whom they will hardly bear out of their 
sight ; or doctor themselves to death for imaginary 
diseases, &c. 

' Others, again, are haunted with a philosophical scepti- 
cism, which I regard as only another form of the same 
disease. They are always labouring to convince them- 
selves that sleep and waking are two different states, and 
that the whole of life is not a dream ; that there is an 
external world: that there is such a thing as personal 
identity (Des Cartes, with his M Cogito, ergo sum." was 
evidently haunted in this way) ; and. not least, to satisfy 
themselves of the truth of their religion, so as to preclude 
all possibility for ever of any doubt creeping in. Xow, 
how is this state of mind to be combated ? Direct argu- 
ments to prove the desired conclusion do not succeed in 
such a case. At least, they are not alone sufficient prac- 
tically to exclude doubt. And the worst of it is, that 
when a man r s understanding assures him, more or less 
certainly, that he ought to be fully convinced, and yet his 
feelings suggest doubts, he is apt to be haunted with a 
fresh doubt whether this be not a sinful want of faith. 

( When I have found mvself in this state, the first thing 
I do is to convince myself that there is such a state. 
Next, I place myself in a jury-box, and resolve to give a 
verdict according to the evidence, not leaving out of ac- 
count the authority of competent persons who have pro- 
nounced such and such evidence good; just as a juryman 
does, whether there be a great or a small preponderance 
of probability. And then, just as the juryman does not 
try the cause over again, but sentence is pronounced ac- 
cording to the verdict, I resolve to set about acting ac- 
cording to the decision I have come to, and withdraw my 
attention for the present from the question already tried : 
alwaj-s keeping in mind that faith, in the sense in which 
it is a virtue, does not consist in the strength of the con- 
viction, but in readiness to act on the conviction ; in 



iE-r. 62] OX KELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES. 225 

being u willing to do the will of God," and hoping to be 
rewarded by " knowing of the doctrine whether it be of 
God." 

' And I have commonly found that some points of evi- 
dence come out incidentally when the mind is occupied 
with collateral enquiries. E.g., while I was discussing the 
corruptions that have been introduced into Christianity, 
it struck me most forcibly that these would surely have 
been the original religion if it had been of man's devis- 
ing, &c. 

' You must have often observed that the side sight of 
the eye is the strongest. You get a brighter view of a 
comet, or some other of the heavenly bodies, when you 
are looking not outright at it, but at some other star near 
it. And so it often is with evidence. Discuss some other 
point allied to the one on which you have been unable to 
satisfy yourself, and it will often happen that, just as when 
you are hunting for something you have lost, you find 
other things which you had lost long before. Some argu- 
ment will strike you with its full force which had failed 
to make a due impression when you were occupied in 
trying the very question it relates to ; when a certain 
anxiety to be convinced produced a sort of resistance to 
evidence. Observe : I have said, " Withdraw your atten- 
tion for the present from the question " that puzzles you ; 
for it would be not only unfair, but would tend to keep 
up an uneasy suspicion in your mind to resolve never 
from henceforth to debate such and such a question, but 
put off the discussion to some definite or indefinite time, 
and turn your mind to some different subject. 

' I dare say you have often, like my other pupils, re- 
ceived that advice, which I always acted on myself, for 
your studies. When a man has got thoroughly puzzled 
at some passage in an author, or at a mathematical 
problem, I have known him sit over it for hours, till he 
was half distracted, without being any the forwarder ; and 
when he comes to look at it again a day or two after, 
having been occupied in the interim with other things, 
he finds it quite easy. And it is the same when you are 

Q 



226 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [lS50 

trying to recollect some name. I always told my pupils, 
" When, after a reasonable time, you cannot make out a 
difficulty, pass on to something else, and return to the 
point next day;" and many a weary hour have I saved 
them. I have known a gamekeeper act on an analogous 
plan. When the dogs failed to find a winged bird in a 
thicket, he called them off and hunted them elsewhere 
for half an hour ; on coming back, they found the bird at 
once. He assured me that if he had kept them at that 
thicket all day, they would never have found the bird. 
The phenomenon is curious, and I do not profess to ex- 
plain it. But of the fact and the practical inference I 
cannot doubt. 

' And now I have sent you the medicine, which, if you 
approve of it, you may administer. 

6 Ever yours, 

' Ed. Whately.' 

The year 1850 opened with much trial to the subject 
of this memoir, not only from sickness in his family, 
but from other causes known and shared only by them. 

The precarious health of his son obliged him to leave 
a curacy in England to which he had been recently 
ordained, and try a winter in a warmer climate. Accom- 
panied by a sister, he started for Nice in December 1849 ; 
the Archbishop accompanied his children as far as Paris, 
but his journey was a hurried one, and early in 1850 he 
was again at his post. 

The following letter is to a much valued correspondent, 
with whom he had recently become intimate : — 

To Mrs. Hill of Cork. 

' March 26, 1850. 

' Dear Mrs. Hill, — I do not quite recollect whether you 
have any of my works. I will send you either the whole, 
or as many as may be deficient. You may return them 
on the 30th of February. The cost to me of such a gift 
to any one not likely to be a purchaser, is next to nothing ; 



JEt. 63] LETTER TO MRS. HILL. 227 

and, accordingly, Dr. West is allowed to give them away 
to such persons at his discretion, as from himself. But I 
do not ordinarily give copies as " from the author/' for 
fear of giving offence to those omitted. The line that I 
draw is, to give to those who have in some way assisted. 
And your pretty book of selections brings you within the 
category of having done something. 

6 You do not mention the Proverb copies at the end of 
" Sullivan's Spelling Book." If any periodical you are 
writing for would take them they are at your service, as 
he has no copyright in them. 

'The apophthegms I was speaking of would, I should 
think, all go into two or three octavo pages. Perhaps if 
you were to add to them some others from different authors, 
you might make a collection which would be acceptable 
to some periodical. Several of Bacon's " antitheta " (selec- 
tions from which I have printed at the end of the Rhetoric) 
would be jewels in such a collection, if so translated (which 
is not easy) as to lose none of their force. 

6 Macaulay's writings would furnish several. If you 
should undertake any such collection for the amusement 
of your leisure, or for any other purpose, you will find 
that some passages will require to be a little altered in 
expression to make them intelligible apart from the con- 
text, e.g. (in S. V. on the Shepherds at Bethlehem) 
"When the illumination from heaven, the rays of revela- 
tion, failed to shed full light on the Gospel-dispensation, 
they brought to the dial-plate the lamp of human philo- 
sophy. 5 ' I have published nothing, and hardly written 
anything on language, except what is to be found in the 
Logic (including the Easy Lessons on Eeasoning) ; but, in 
fact, Logic, as treated by me, relates altogether to lan- 
guage; as I am a zealous Nominalist, and reject all the 
stuff that so many talk about " Ideas." I dare say you 
have heard the story of a lady who had had very little 
education, but was anxious to improve herself, and bor- 
rowed instructive books of a learned gentleman, who, 
despising female intellect, lent her Locke's Essay, as a 
joke; and when she returned it asked her what she 

q2 



228 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1850 

thought of it; she replied, "that there seemed to her 
many very good things in it, but there was one word she 
did not clearly understand, the word idea (as she pro- 
nounced it, which, by the way, is just as we do pronounce 
it — " not idea " — in the original Greek) ; he told her it 
was the feminine of " idiot." My remark on the story 
was that I quite agreed with the lady; and, moreover, 
that I verily think neither the learned gentleman nor 
Locke himself understood in what sense he used the word, 
any more than she, only that she had the sagacity to per- 
ceive that she did not.' 

To the same. 

'Dublin: Maroli 29, 1850. 

6 The " bush " is supposed by all commentators to have 
been the commonest bush in the Arabian Desert, the dwarf 
palm. It is now naturalised in some parts of Spain. 
Whether this is the origin of its branches being an em- 
blem of victory, or whether it was merely that it is a fine- 
looking branch of a common shrub, is a doubtful matter. 

' The Polynesians use a plantain leaf as a flag of truce. 
But the idea of the phoenix is very ingenious, and worth 
considering. Xow for another question : Can you connect 
a bay horse with a bay tree ? 1. As in Ireland, the sub- 
stitute for a palm -branch is a sprig of yew ; and in Eng- 
land, a sprig of willow with its catkins ; so in Italy, the 
substitute for a palm-branch was the " laurus " — the bay- 
tree. 2. Now the Greek for a palm-branch is "baion" 
(which is in the Greek Testament, where " they cut down 
branches from the trees," &c). And 3. The Latin for 
baion is "spadix;" which is also 4th, used for a bay- 
horse (Virgil's Georgics), from the colour of the young 
shoot. 

6 As for the cases, I have often remarked that the geni- 
tive, denoting the source from which anything arises, is 
used when our attention is directed primarily to our own 
feelings; and the accusative, denoting the object acted 
on, when our attention is called to the effect produced on 



2£t. 63] VISITS CROMER WITH HIS FAMILY. 229 

another. When you strike your hand gently on the table 
you say, " I feel the table ; " when strongly, you say, " I 
feel pain in my hand from the table." Now sight is the 
faintest sensation, and the most vivid perception. The 
Greeks therefore spoke of sight as acting on the thing 
perceived, and all the other senses as giving a sensation 
from the object. So also </uAeo, to love, governs an accusa- 
tive case; we seem to be acting on the object; but ipav 
or ipaaOai, to " be in love," to " suffer love," governs a 
genitive. 

' Mr. Sullivan, in his next edition, is to insert another 
proverb — 

Silver gilt will often pass 

Either for gold, or else for brass — 

with the comment that some men who, at the first glance, 
give the idea of something very superior indeed, rather 
beyond what they really are, ultimately are either under- 
rated or overrated. Your remarks on Apophthegms oc- 
curred to me in my sermon to-day, in which — as often — 
I had summed up the substance in one sentence : We 
must " watch " as if all depended on our own vigilance, 
and we must " pray " as if nothing depended on it. 

' Very truly yours, 

6 Ed. Dublin.' 

Part of the summer of 1850 was spent at Cromer with 
his family, where he formed an acquaintance with one 
whose rare powers of mind rendered her peculiarly ca- 
pable of entering into his — the late Miss Anna Gurney, 
of North Eepps. None who have enjoyed the privilege of 
her society will readily forget it; and the Archbishop's 
intercourse with her, brief as it was, was much enjoyed 
by him, and was kept up by occasional correspondence. 

Another acquaintance (already alluded to',, renewed this 
year, ripened into a friendship which contributed much to 
the interest and pleasure of his later years — namely, with 
the late Mrs. Hill, of Cork, whose high qualities of mind 
and heart were such as to recommend her peculiarly to the 



230 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1850-1 

Archbishop. With no one, perhaps, at this period of his 
life, did he carry on a more intimate and unreserved cor- 
respondence. She was able to assist in many of his literary 
labours, and wrote many papers from his suggestions ; and 
their intercourse by letter was only broken by the illness 
which ended in her death. 

' October 6, 1850. 

'My dear Mrs. Arnold, — "What in the world can have 
possessed the Archbishop that he sends us a parcel of 
haws ? " Now, guess ! Do you give it up ? They are 
some of the fruit of the red-flowering hawthorn which 

dear budded with her own fair hands. They are 

sent, however, not merely to show how well it has flowered, 
but in case you and she have a mind to try the experiment 
of sowing them, and trying what will come. I have been 
trying several such experiments, and should follow them 
up if I had leisure; for the subject of Varieties, both of 
plants and animals, is particularly interesting to me. Among 
other things, it is connected with the question whether all 
mankind are of one species. The two extreme opinions 
are, 1st, that of those who teach that negroes, Europeans, 
Tartars, Red Indians, &c, are distinct species ; and 2nd, 
that of Lamarck and the " Vestiges of Creation," who hold 
that men are descended from apes, and those again from 
cockles and worms; and between these there are very 
many shades of opinion. 

'I have sown the seeds of the white black-currant, and 
the white variety of the woody nightshade, and all of them 
— as many as have flowered — have come true. On the 
other hand, I have sown berries of the Florence-court yew 
(which the botanical books speak of as a distinct species), 
and all that have come up as yet have been common yews. 
' One thing that has, till lately, been an obstacle to ex- 
periments of this kind, is, that with many trees the seed- 
ling must be a good many years old before it flowers, so 
as to show what it is ; but this is now got over. If the 
young seedling is grafted on a bearing branch of a tree of 
the same species, it will flower and fruit speedily ; so that 



JEt. 64] THE PAPAL AGGRESSION. 231 

there are now many new apples, plums, &c, to be had at 
the nursery gardens, which were raised from the seed only 
a very few years ago. I have some hawthorns thus grafted 
with seedlings from the red-flowered, which I hope will 
flower next spring. 

'Haws usually lie in the ground a whole year before 
they come up; but they (and the same with the hips of 
roses), if mashed up in water with some meal, or anything 
else that will ferment, and so left for several weeks, will 
be so softened that they will, many of them, come up the 
first spring. 

' One day, while waiting for the train at Windermere, 
on my way from Fox How hither, I was attracted by a very 
fine wild rose-bush of the deep-red kind, close to the 
station ; and I pulled up a sucker and brought it home, 
and (though this was in June !) it was so good as to grow, 
and I have now two plants of it. 

' Did they tell you of our excursion to see the charcoal- 
works ? It was very interesting. I had known two years 
before how well plants will grow in peat-charcoal, having 
tried it ; but I was astonished at the neat contrivance for 
charring, and they sell it at 35s. per ton ! I have bought 
a ton, to try it in my few fields. If the thing succeeds as 
it has promised, it holds out a prospect (barring Poor- 
laws) of regenerating Ireland, and, by-the-bye, a good 
deal of your part of England too. 5 

The year 1851 was memorable for the excitement caused 
by the subject of the ' Papal Aggression.' The Archbishop 
was anxious to point out to all concerned, that the real 
danger lay, not in the irritating bravados of the Church 
of Rome, but in the quiet and secret labours of her emis- 
saries to win the confidence of individuals, and undermine 
simple faith in the Scriptures. To open the eyes of the 
public to this less noticed and latent evil, was the object 
with which the ' Cautions for the Times ' were commenced ; 
they were most of them not actually written by the Arch- 
bishop, but composed under his directions, with his revisal 
and minute superintendence. 



232 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [lSol 

The Bishop of Oxford had sent him a copy of the protest 
made by the clergy of his dioee-e against the • Aggression. 5 
The Archbishop's answer to this letter was as follows : — 

Archbishop of Dublin's Answer to Letter (and Protest) 
of Bishop of Oxford on the Papal Aggression. 

'Dublin: Feb. 1. ISol. 
< Mv dear Lord. — I have to acknowledge your favour of 
January 30. accompanied by a copy of the protest of your 
clergy against the proceedings of the pope. 

• It would be superfluous for me to express my con- 
currence in the denial of the claims and censure of the 
peculiar doctrines of the Church of Borne, a subject on 
which I have written and published so much within the 
last thirty years. 

' And as for the present particular occasion, the Ad- 
dresses to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the Queen, 
from the Irish prelates (which were drawn up chiefly by 
the Archbishop of Armagh and myself, and signed by all 
the bishops ). sufficiently express our views on the most 
important points. 

' Your Lordship will observe that in those documents 
we earnestly deprecate the introduction of any legislative 
measures for the protection of the Church in Errand. 
exclusively of Ireland, as a violation of the Act of Union, 
and fraught with danger to both countries. 

' That an adherence to this principle will prevent any 
penal enactments at all is my conviction, for no adminis- 
tration is likely to propose anv that shall extend to Ire- 
land. 

i A zealous and far-sighted Komanist would. I conceive. 
rejoice at any enactments against the Church of Lome 
for England exclusively. They would afford a pretext 
for raising the cry of *' ; persecution." without the least 
risk of their being enforced, like firing at a mob with 
blank cartridge, which enrages without repelling: and 
thev would give plausibility to his Church's claims in 
this country, without practically weakening its cause in 
England. 



Bt. 64] THE PAPAL AGGRESSIOX. 233 

' In most of the speeches, pamphlets, addresses, &c, 
that I have seen on the subject, there is a confused blend- 
ing together of three quite distinct subjects: (1) The 
claim of the Eomish Church to universal supremacy : 
(2) The peculiar doctrines and practices of that Church; 
and (3) The appointment of bishops denominated from 
districts in England, in place of Yicars-Apc-stolical, 

6 The third alone is the novelty. The others are just 
what they have long been, and yet they are often con- 
fusedly mixed up with what is said of the third. And all 
three are, in themselves, quite independent of each other. 
For — (1) The Church of Rome might conceivably have 
reformed (and many at the time cherished this hope), at 
the Council of Trent, a multitude of abuses, and yet might 
still have retained its claim to be the Universal Church. 
(2) It is possible to retain most of the peculiar doctrines 
and practices of the Church of Rome, without acknow- 
ledging any supremacy of that Church, as was in fact clone 
by Henry VIII., and is done by the Greek Church. (3) To 
appoint bishops over particular dioceses is what is in fact 
done by the Scotch Protestant Episcopal Church, which 
repudiates both the claims and the doctrines of Rome. 

4 Some would admit that, supposing the Romish Church 
to be pure, and its claims to supremacy well-founded, the 
step taken by the Pope would have been unobjectionable ; 
and consequently is in itself unobjectionable. Others seem 
to think it would at any rate have been an infringe- 
ment of the royal prerogative. And some again seem — 
I cannot understand how — to hold both these opinions 
together — that the procedure would have been legal, and 
politically right, but for its connexion with theological 
error. 

4 In reference to the protest of your Lordship's clergy 
permit me, with all respect, to suggest a doubt as to one 
passage of it, where it is declared to be their conviction 
that the doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome 
would be condemned by the judgment (could that be ob- 
tained) of the " Universal Church," 

'The experiment indeed is not one that any one can 



234 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1851 

expect to see tried; but each man will be likely to form 
his own — not unreasonable — conjectures, as to the result 
of such a trial, if it were made. And I apprehend, the 
conclusion most would come to on this point would be 
such that the Eomanists would be but too happy to join 
issue thereon. 

6 Strictly speaking, the Universal Church (on earth) must 
comprise all Christians, and the majority of these have no 
original and natural right — none except by express com- 
pact — to dictate to the minority. The decision of Christian 
men. like the verdict of a jury, must be that which they 
all agree in. By law. the decision of the House of Com- 
mons is that of the majority of members present: in the 
House of Lords, of the majority of those present in per- 
son or by proxy. But where there is no law laid clown 
on the subject, the decision of fifty-one men in a hundred 
against forty-nine, ought not to be called the decision of 
the hundred. 

' Now it may be said. u If all Christians disapprove of the 
Eomish doctrine and practice, how comes that Church to 
exist ? " or if it be assumed — which is an entirely ground- 
less assumption — that the majority are to represent the 
whole, and to be accounted the Universal Church, it may 
surely be said, u The Eoman Catholics actually are a ma- 
jority: and. moreover, those of the Greek Church would 
vote in favour of the far greater part of the doctrines and 
practices of Borne. There would therefore be an over- 
whelming majority in favour of Bomish doctrines and 
worship." 

' It is melancholy to reflect — but so the actual state of 
the case is — that if we go to decide questions by collect- 
ing votes (i.e. by an appeal to human authority) the Pro- 
testants must be outvoted.* 

The following letter was sent to his friend and literary 
assistant and employee Mrs. Hill, with a copy of the 
' Lessons on Morals ; " another of that series of ' Easy 
Lessons.' which he considered as belonging to the most 
important and difficult class of his works, 



JEt. 64] LETTER TO .MRS. HILL. 235 

It was his rule to give copies of his work to all those 
who had in any way helped him, either in copying, making 
indexes, offering suggestions, or in any other way ; and no 
one was ever more ready to acknowledge such obliga- 
tions. 

'Dublin: Feb. 4, 1851. 

' My dear Mrs. Hill, — I am obliged to send you this in 
conformity with my rule of presenting a copy to every one 
who may have, more or less, contributed. And in this I 
have adopted a suggestion of yours. 

'This little, very little book, has been in hand con- 
stantly for between two and three months ; during which 
I never passed a day (for that I find an essential rule) 
without doing something to it. It is true I have been of 
late unusually busy ; else I might have got through it in 
.six weeks. But then, on the other hand, full three-fourths 
was already written, in the form of sermons, and I had 
only to arrange and retouch. I mention this to show how 
absurd it would be for me to undertake a large original 
work, requiring many books to be consulted, and the whole 
to be composed from the beginning. 

'That little tract, the " Lessons on Eeligious Worship," 
though merely a compilation, cost me six months of in- 
cessant work. 

6 Original works must be left to those who can com- 
mand unbroken leisure ; if at least they would produce 
anything valuable. 

' Believe me to be, 

' Yours very truly, 

'Ed. Dublin.' 

To Bishop Hinds on the Marriage Laivs. 

'Dublin: Feb. 20, 1851. 

'My dear Hinds,— -When it is that a desirable measure 
is advanced, and when retarded, and when neither, by 
bringing it forward in Parliament, must be judged of by 
intelligent persons on the spot. 



236 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1851 

' In either of the two former cases, the right course is 
obvious. In the third case, how much trouble and, per- 
haps, obloquy it is worth while to encounter for the sake 
of protesting against a wrong, and asserting a right prin- 
ciple, and clearing one's conscience, must be determined 
by the nature of the case. I have more than once come 
forward to advocate some important principle, or to pro- 
test against some bad measure, with a full knowledge that 
I could not succeed, except in clearing myself. 

f The opposition to Lord St. German's bill, which is, it 
seems, so overpoweringly strong, is founded chiefly, as far 
as I can judge, on misapprehension. And whether this 
misapprehension be or be not incurable ; and, again, 
whether it is more likely to be remedied by bringing 
forward the bill, or by abstaining, I cannot undertake to 
decide. 

fc The misapprehension I mean is, that almost all the 
advocates of the restriction, and a large proportion of 
those who are for removing it, seem prepared to join issue 
on the question " whether a marriage between a brother 
and sister-in-law is or is not a suitable, desirable, proper 
thing." 

c If you will ask the ninety-nine of every hundred women, 
who, as you say, are opposed to the bill, what are their 
sentiments thereon, I think you will find ninety of them 
taking for granted that that is the question; and that 
those who approve of such marriages ought to vote for the 
bill, and those who disapprove thereon ought to vote 
against it. 

6 Now this is, according to my view, not the question, 
and it is a point on which I decline giving any opinion. 

' This, however, I am ready to declare ; that if any one 
should consult me as to the desirableness of a marriage 
where there was a very great disparity of age, or of rank, 
or where there was a taint of hereditary disease on either 
side, I should pronounce against such a marriage. But 
Heaven forbid we should have laws to prescribe the rela- 
tive ages of parties who are to marry, or to require so 
many quarterings on each side like German nobles — or to 



2Et. 64] ON THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 237 

have the parties examined by a jury of surgeons, like 
horses for sale ! 

' My principle is that the presumption is against all 
restrictions. Some we must have. But the burden of 
proof lies on those who advocate either the imposition or 
the continuance of any restriction. We are not bound to 
show that everyone who is left to judge and act for him- 
.self will decide and act first in the way that the majority 
of his neighbours would think best ; but the others are 
bound to show some great and palpable evil that would in 
such and such a case result from leaving men free. I am 
no friend to late hours, or to carelessness about fire, or 
lavish feasting and dress ; but I do not vote for the old 
curfew law, or for laws prescribing how many dishes of 
meat a man may have on his table, &c. 

'Then, as for the Mosaic law, there again I decline 
giving any opinion, because I cannot bring myself to be- 
lieve men serious in bringing forward arguments about 
that till I find them themselves conforming to that law. 
That consistent procedure would alone entitle them to a 
hearing. And that is what they therefore may fairly be 
challenged to. This would be ir^pirk^vziv to 7rpay/xa. 

6 But if they say this is part of the moral law of Moses, 
how can we in any case judge of that but by the light of 
reason ? And when the very question is about a point of 
morality, to resort to the Levitical law is a most palpable 
begging of the question. " Such and such a thing is im- 
moral because it is forbidden in the moral law, and that it 
is so is proved because it is immoral ! " If then the Levitical 
law (and the same may be said of the canons of foreign 
churches and councils) be not binding on us, it is better 
to waive all questions about it; unless, perhaps, to make 
these two remarks : 

'(1st) That anything distinctly enjoined in that law 
ought not to be pronounced in itself, universally and 
necessarily, criminal ; and the marriage, under certain 
circumstances, of a brother and sister-in-law was enjoined 
in that law. 

*(2ndly) That the Levitical law is no guide for our 



238 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1851 

legislation, even in cases where all admit that morality is 
concerned ; e. g. no one doubts that gluttony and drunken- 
ness, and disobedience to parents, are moral offences, yet 
no legislature has (in conformity with the Mosaic code) 
affixed the penalty of death to them. 

6 Waiving then the irrelevant questions of what mar- 
riages are suitable and desirable, and of the Mosaic law 
and foreign canons, let people be brought to the discussion 
of the true question; which is, whether a sufficient public 
benefit from the restriction can be proved, to justify the 
abridgment of a man's liberty? Whether the evil of 
leaving all men to judge for themselves in this point be 
greater than that of meddlesome legislative interference 
with domestic concerns. 

6 It savours of puerility and of barbarism to be for 
always keeping men in the leading strings of legislative 
injunction and prohibition. " There ought to be a law to 
make men do this, and to prevent their doing that ! " is 
just what occurs to an intelligent and well-disposed child 
of twelve years old. 

( We have been told in discussion on this subject, that 
66 men must learn to control their inclinations." There is 
one inclination which it would be well for members of 
parliament to control — the inclination to over-governing, 
the lust of legislation, and of imposing or keeping up 
restrictions. 

' If the opponents of the bill can be brought to confine 
themselves to the real question — to the making out a 
sufficient case to justify an abridgment of liberty — I 
think many of them will themselves perceive that their 
cause has very little to rest on. 

' "There would arise a scandal," they say, "at a sister- 
in-law residing in a widower's house, if they were allowed 
to marry ; but none at all as long as a marriage is quite 
out of the question : viz. unnatural by Act of Parliament ! " 

' I can't believe that in either condition of the law any 
scandal would arise among people of any sense of decorum, 
and as for those who are dead not only to virtue but to 
shame, they would be out of the reach of the law. But 



iEr. 64] OX THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 239 

whatever little danger there is of scandal, is greater now. 
If some gossiping neighbours suggested that Mr. A. was 
likely to marry Miss B., because she was taking charge of 
her deceased sister's children, the rumour would soon wear 
away when it was found they did not marry when they 
mio'ht. But if the marriage is illegal, then an attachment 
mio'ht be suspected, such as might tend to illicit inter- 
course. And the sister-in-law would feel it much more a 
matter of delicacy and doubt to reside with the widower. 
But I don't think any decent people would incur suspicion 
in either case. It is plain, however, that the more 
shocking and atrocious is any act, the less likely are toler- 
ably respectable persons to incur the suspicion of it. 
Now, undoubtedly, to have illicit intercourse with a sister- 
in-law would be doubly atrocious, when the parties are 
left at liberty to marry if they will. And it is, therefore, 
less likely to be suspected if the law were altered, than as 
it stands. 

; As for legislating with a view to guard any possible 
jealousy between husband and wife, we should surely have 
enough to do if we were to attempt that ! 

' A man, or a woman either, had better be at once pro- 
hibited from any second marriage; or, perhaps, from 
marrying any one he had ever seen before his first wife's 
death ! For it might be argued " he may become ac- 
quainted after his marriage with some lady who he thinks 
would have suited him better than his actual wife ; and if 
this be suspected, jealousy may arise ! ' Now in the case 
of sisters, it is worth observing, that a man is in most* 
cases acquainted with the whole family, and singles out of 
all the sisters the one he prefers. So that this is precisely 
the case in which jealousy is the least likely to occur. 

' There appears to me, therefore, a total failure in all the 
few attempts that have been made to support this restric- 
tion on the true grounds. But the advocates of the bill 
have often — to their loss — been seduced into arguing a 
different question, on which, though they may be very 
right, they are not so triumphantly and clearly in the 
right. 



240 life .J ap.ceiise:-? ~::.,::iv. [lssi 

• Tiiej si. :■.:'. i re::eri-f :i.i: :i.e :\ies:i::: is n:: •'■' — lr:^: 
a inan should or should not contract such a marriage," but 
" whether each, should be left to ad in Hie way that Lr 
thinks best, or whether the minority should be oppressed 

- :Le urorirr. in: :;z2\::<r~iei :: : : n: rn ~ .:_ : v.: v_it 
sufficient :: ; r, to the opinion of another, in their own 
private concerns ! w 

' That minority, though it be such, is considerable and 
respectable; Lid Campbell, indeed, says in one of his 
books, in a note, that : is pleaded in behalf of these 
marriages that they are common ; and the same may be 
said of bribery and cheating. 

•I cannot say I evei iieard such a plea urged; thoughl 
cannot prove thai it _ ever was. What I have heard urged, 
and I think fairly, is that such marriages are common 
among worthy, : : able, well-conducted people. 

c Certainly experience proved for a century and more 
before the Act of 1835, that the evils to society now 
apprehended are chimerical, for there was till then no 
real prohibition of such marriages. 

• They were nominally illegal; but at the expense of a 
liv.le :r; ncie :"_t "_:.- — ; - --;. if i ; " :. i. I IrlirTr. —^ zt~~: 
en::r:-d. A: ny r :e. i: is ::ii;- :r::::i :iia: 2.: :Li: 
time, and long before, such a marriage was not looked 

; >n as a thing quite impossible and out of the question, 
is i^~;>:! 2..S "::e~ tt~_ ':::"".-::_" EisTfr. I: ~:.s — fii iy_:~- 
:l.i: T_:sf i_:i:t::._ — ni^i:: _ . ii :". i:: Sr_i ~_ :::.kr ::'.... :-. 
iii "t" i_: -\\.\l evil results :: s;:ir" :.s ner_ ire i:~ 
dreaming of, ensued- Those dreams are refuted by ex- 
j erience as well is ;:v reis : n." 

In the midst of these higher and grave interests, the 
A::hbishop was always :eady to turn his mind to any 
scheme : practical utility, in whatever department. And 
at this time he drew up and sent to the managers of the 
first Great Exhibition, the following ct Suggestions for a 
Universal Coinage, 93 a plan which had occurred to his 
mind manj years efore. 



JEt. 64] SUGGESTIONS FOR A UNIVERSAL COINAGE. 241 

Suggestions for a Universal Coinage. 

'The most selfish man should, on national grounds, 
prize any advantage to himself not the less from its being 
an equal advantage to his neighbour. And so the most 
narrow-minded patriot ought to seek a benefit to his 
country not the less from its being an equal benefit to 
other countries. But long rivalry and hostility have bred 
such associations that men often regard with indifference 
or aversion what may benefit their own country if it give 
no superiority over other nations, but benefits them 
equally. If the Exhibition of 1851 shall tend to do away 
such feelings it will have done great service. The advan- 
tage of a uniform currency for all the world need not be 
dwelt on. The trouble, and often fraud, occasioned by 
having to change all one's coins in going from one State 
to another, and the continual fluctuations in the rate of 
exchange — for instance, between the franc and the sove- 
reign — are evils which no one is unaware of. The Spanish 
dollar has in many countries approached somewhat to a 
common currency, being received freely in many places 
unconnected with Spain ; on account of its known purity 
of metal. 

6 The additional requisites for a current coin that should 
be nearly universal, would be: 1st. That it should have 
no indication of Nationality, so as to awaken national 
jealousies by appearing on the face of it, to be anywhere 
a foreign coin. 2ndly. That it should be as far as possible 
conveniently measured by the known coins or weights of 
many countries. 3rdly. That it should have some inscrip- 
tions intelligible to as many different people as possible. 

' Xow Troy weight is in very general use throughout the 
world. And, accordingly, an ounce Troy of silver duly 
stamped, would be in most places nothing strange ; more- 
over, it is not very remote from many of the coins or 
moneys of account of many states. It approaches near 
to the English crown, to the Spanish dollar, to the Portu- 
guese mil-re, to six francs French, and to definite numbers 
of several other coins. It should be inscribed, not with 

R 



242 



LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 



[1851 



the name and arms of any state or sovereign, but with its 
designation as an ounce ; together with the time of its being 
struck. It should be of a somewhat purer silver than the 
existing standards ; suppose 34 parts of silver to 2 of copper. 
6 And both sides might be covered with inscriptions in 
various languages, denoting the equivalent in the existing 
moneys of the respective nations — something in this way: — 





Of course the most elaborate care should be taken in the 
execution of the die, and if the State which first issued 
such a coinage should declare it to be a legal tender 
(without superseding however the non-current coin) and 
should denounce penalties against impairing or forging 
such coinage, it is likely that other nations would, one by 
one, follow the example, to the unspeakable benefit of all 
the parties concerned. Of course it would be easy to issue 
at the same time half-ounces or quarter-ounces, one-tenths 
and one-hundredths. 

6 If some public-spirited individual concerned in metal- 
works would try his skill in producing and exhibiting a 
specimen of such a coin (which might be inferior metal) 
for exhibition in 1851, he would at any rate gain deserved 
repute for himself, and might be the means of bringing 
about a great benefit to all the world.' 

It was at this time that the Hon. and Eev. Gr. Spencer, 
who had become a monk in the Eoman Catholic church 
under the name of u Father Ignatius," was making a kind 
of progress through the United Kingdom, with the view 
of exhorting all Christians, of whatever communion, to 



JEt. 64 J FATHER IGNATIUS. 243 

engage in earnest prayer for unity. He visited Dublin in 
April 1851, and held a long conversation with the Arch- 
bishop, notes of which were taken down by one of his 
chaplains. 

Notes of an Interview between the Archbishop of Dublin 
and the Honourable and Rev. George Spencer (Father 
Ignatius) at the Palace, on Wednesday, April 9, 1851. 

' Mr. Spencer called upon the Archbishop at about three 
o'clock in the afternoon, and was shown into the parlour, 
where there were present with his Grace his domestic 
chaplain, Dr. West, two of his examining chaplains, Mr. 
Mason and Mr. Dixon, and his agent, Mr. Carroll. Mr. 
Spencer was dressed in the costume of his order, which 
consists of a loose gown of coarse dark cloth secured round 
his waist by a leather belt, and meeting close round his 
throat ; over this was a short cloak of the same material 
and colour. On the left shoulder of each was a badge 
apparently of tin, painted black, of the form of a heart 
surmounted by a shamrock. On the heart was printed in 
white letters, u Jesu Christi Passio," and on the shamrock 
was a cross. He had a brass crucifix, probably a reli- 
quary, hanging by a small iron chain from his belt ; and 
he wore a peculiarly-shaped hat, with a very broad brim 
turned up at the sides, and a round crown. In stature he 
is rather below the middle size, his countenance is more 
of the Celtic than of the Saxon character, and his features 
resemble on a small scale those of the celebrated O'Connell. 
His voice is feeble and undecided, and his accent slightly 
nasal. In manners he is mild and courteous. 

8 After the usual salutations had been interchanged, the 
Archbishop remarked to Mr. Spencer that he had called 
upon a day of the week when he would be always sure of 
finding him at home and attended by his chaplains, rt for," 
said his Grace, " these gentlemen are all, my chaplains, 
though they are not, all my chaplains." 

6 " I see," said Mr. Spencer, taking his seat, " that you 
have not forgotten your Logic." 

e2 



•244 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. [1551 

; u Talking of Logic," said the Archbishop, "you know, 
I suppose, that my work on Logic lias been prohibited by 
the pope ? " 

' Mr. Spencer professed ignorance of the circumstance. 

( " It has then," 5 said the Archbishop, u and I have been 
variously congratulated and condoled with by my ftien i s 
on the occasion. There is nothing in the circumstance, 
however, to cause me any surprise, except that the pope 
should have considered the work of sufficient importance 
to be formally prohibited, as I never either intended or 
professed to exclude from it controverted points. You 
know, I suppose, that Dr. Cullen has also condemned the 
book, and has stated that my object in writing it was to 
corrupt the minds of the Catholic youth ?" 

6 Mr. Spencer was not aware of the fact. 

'The Archbishop then informed him that Dr. Cullen 
had brought forward the charge in a letter addressed tc 
his (Dr. Cullen V) clergy in December last. u The work, 
however," pursued his Grace, " was written originally for 
the use of my pupils in Oxford, and was published for the 
sake of any who, with my name on the title-page, might 
desire to read it. In books which I write for the use :: 
schools where education is given to children of different 
religious persuasions, I follow of course a different plan. 
In these I abstain from all points of controversy ; but in 
my other works, the only rules I lay down for myself in 
reference to such points are not to misrepresent the 
opinions or statements of those who differ from me, and 
not to speak uncharitably of them. And I wish that Mr, 
Cahill, of whom you were just speaking," said his Grace, 
turning to Mr. Dixon, "would observe :he same roles. 
You have heard, I suppose," continued the Archbish 
addressing his visitor, " that Mr. Cahill has been publish- 
ing sermons and letters containing the grossest misrepre- 
sentations of the actions and intentions of the gov iniment 
and of individuals, and calculated to inflame and exasperate 
in the highest degree the minds of the ignorant people 
into whose hands these publications will fall ? " 

f Mr. Spencer deprecated imputing to Mr, Cahill the 



Mr. 64] FATHER IGNATIUS. 245 

intention of producing the effects which his Grace had 
anticipated from his pamphlets. 

1 To this the Archbishop replied, that of course we should 
be very cautious in imputing a bad motive to any person, 
where a reasonable doubt could exist as to his intention, 
but that this was not the case in the present instance ; for 
the avowed object of Mr. Cahill was to excite the indig- 
nation of the Irish people against the English government, 
and he sought to effect this object by making statements 
respecting individuals which he must have known to be 
false. Thus he accused Mr. Drummond of having not 
only spoken disrespectfully of the Virgin Mary, but having 
also applied to her epithets applicable only to the most 
abandoned of the female sex. " Now," said the Arch- 
bishop, "though I am very far from desiring to defend 
Mr. Drummond, though I think his speech a most unfor- 
tunate one, and though I heartily wished he had been at 
the bottom of the Red Sea when he made it, yet, as they 
say even a certain black gentleman should receive his 
due, it must be admitted that Mr. Drummond was not 
guilty of the charges brought against him by Mr. Cahill." 

'Mr. Spencer said that he had read Mr. Drummond's 
letter, in which that gentleman had, as he conceived, ex- 
culpated himself by stating that he had not meant to 
speak disrespectfully of the Blessed Virgin, and that he, 
Mr. Spencer, felt that credit should be given to Mr. 
Drummond's statement. 

' The Archbishop replied, that it did not require a know- , 
ledge of the letter to prove that Mr. Cahill's charges were 
unfounded. No newspaper had reported Mr. Drummond 
to have used disrespectful language of the Virgin Mary, 
much less to have applied to her the epithets referred to 
by Mr. Cahill, although they all condemned or lamented 
his speech, and described the dissatisfaction excited by 
several passages of it which they reported, and which 
were certainly bad enough. 

' Mr. Spencer replied, that for his part he must confess, 
that when he first read Mr. Drummond's speech, he thought 
he had spoken disrespectfully of the Blessed Virgin. 



246 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1851 

'"How?" said the Archbishop, "the only allusion he 
made to the Virgin Mary was, to speak in a tone of con- 
tempt of some relics ascribed to her, and, as he believed, 
without sufficient evidence. Would you think I spoke 
disrespectfully of you, if I spoke contemptuously of some 
letter which I believed and pronounced to be a forgery 
and falsely ascribed to you ; or would you accuse me of 
speaking disrespectfully of our Lord, if I said that I did 
not believe the holy coat of Treves to have been His, and 
that even if it had, I did not think it should be made an 
object of adoration ? " 

'Mr. Spencer did not seem disposed to continue his 
defence or apology for Mr. Cahill, he preferred passing on 
to the object of his visit, which was to make some remarks 
on a letter he had received from Dr. West, relative to the 
subjects discussed at a former interview which he bad 
with the Archbishop, and in which he sought to press 
upon his Grace's attention the importance, at the present 
crisis, of all serious persons making a combined effort for 
the promotion of Christian unity. He said that he fully 
concurred with the opening remarks in this letter on the 
importance of making truth the first object in all our 
pursuits, and that he also admitted the justice of the ob- 
servation made by the Archbishop and repeated by Dr. 
West, that different persons entertain very different no- 
tions of Christian unity ; some, for instance, holding that 
it implies submission to a central government and a visible 
head of the church, while others believe that it is of a 
purely spiritual character. He felt, therefore, the force 
of the objection, that while persons hold such contradictory 
opinions as to the nature of unity, it is impossible for them 
to be united in their pursuit of it ; but it occurred to him 
that his original proposal might be so modified as to evade 
this objection. He thought that all might unite in pray- 
ing that God would promote among mankind, by such 
means as seemed best to His infinite wisdom, unity in the 
truth as it appeared to Him. 

'To this the Archbishop replied that such a petition 
was equivalent in point of fact to the second clause in Our 



JEt. 64] FATHER IGNATIUS. 247 

Lord's Prayer, " Thy kingdom come ; " that, moreover, as 
Mr. Spencer must know very well, we are in the habit of 
offering up a petition in one of the prayers of our daily 
service, that " all who profess and call themselves Chris- 
tians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith 
in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteous- 
ness of life," and that we thus show that we are not in- 
sensible of the importance of that unity in the truth which 
Mr. Spencer was now advocating, nor negligent in praying 
for its promotion among mankind. 

6 Mr. Spencer admitted that all this was true. He re- 
membered, moreover, that on one occasion when he waited 
on the Bishop of London, his Lordship had called his at- 
tention to a prayer for unity in the service appointed for 
the day of the Queen's accession, which embodied almost 
all the Scripture phrases relative to the subject. Still he 
desired that greater prominence should be given to the 
topic at the present time, both in our prayers and exhor- 
tations. He believed it to be one of paramount and vital 
importance. "When a great people," said Mr. Spencer, 
"like the English and Irish are disunited on a subject in 
which they take such an interest as that of religion, they 
cannot be united in the pursuit of any political or social 
object." 

' The Archbishop replied that he fully concurred with 
all Mr. Spencer said as to the desirableness and impor- 
tance of unity in the truth, and the evils of disunion. 
That the only point now at issue between them appeared 
to be the best mode of attaining to this unity. Mr. 
Spencer seemed to think it should be sought directly ; he 
(the Archbishop), on the contrary, thought it should be 
sought through truth. "For," said the Archbishop, "it 
is obvious that if any number of persons, individually, 
hold the truth in its integrity, they will all agree and be 
united in their views of it. The best mode, therefore, of 
promoting unity in the truth is to promote the dissemina- 
tion of truth. Truth is one ; all who hold the truth will 
be at one. And so, if we desire to promote among chil- 
dren at school that unity and harmony which result from 



24S LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. Fl85i 

mutual forbearance, &c, the most effectual way of gaining 
our object will be to press upon every child individually 
the duty of exercising those feelings of charity, toleration, 
and forbearance. This is in fact the only practical way 
of seeking to attain the end we have in view. If we seek 
to attain it directly by pressing upon the children the im- 
portance of being united, the evils resulting from disunion, 
&c, the most turbulent in the school, the most intolerant, 
and the least forbearing will heartily assent to the justice 
of our observations, and will immediately proceed to in- 
culcate and enforce a unity which shall consist in subjec- 
tion to themselves ; and thus our attempts to promote unity 
will end in increasing dissension. Xo ; the right way is to 
press upon each individual child the duties of forbearance, 
toleration, and charity ; and this is, in fact,*' continued the 
Archbishop, "the course adopted in the schools in connexion 
with the National Board. There are nearly five thousand 
of these schools through Ireland, giving instruction to 
nearly half a million of children ; and in every one of 
them is hung up a card, containing what are called general 
rules, the object of which is to inculcate upon the children 
the duties which I have so often referred to of forbear- 
ance, &c. The best way then," said the Archbishop, " and 
in fact, as I have shown, the only way, to promote unity 
in the truth among men is to impress upon them the duty 
and the necessity of their individually seeking after truth, 
and embracing it when found, and of being tolerant, 
forbearing, and charitable towards all who differ from 
them in opinion." 

' The Archbishop then dwelt upon the importance of 
cultivating a love of truth for its own sake, and of form- 
ing such a habit of mind as shall lead its professor to em- 
brace any opinion, however contrary to his prejudices, 
which he may be honestly convinced is true, and to reject 
any, no matter how congenial to his tastes or sentiments, 
or how strongly supported by authority, if it were proved 
to him to be false. And the Archbishop professed him- 
self always ready to act by this rule. 

'Mr. Spencer seemed startled. He enquired whether 



JEt. 64] FATHER IGNATIUS. 249 

his Grace held all his opinions thus loosely ; whether, for 
instance, he regarded as a doubtful and unsettled point 
the inspiration of the sacred Scriptures. 

' The Archbishop replied that Mr. Spencer appeared to 
misunderstand him. He did not mean to say that his 
opinions on such points as he had examined and made up 
his mind on were wavering or undecided. He meant 
that having embraced the opinions which he held because 
he believed them to be true, he was ready to renounce 
them if they were shown to be false. While he held them, 
he was of course convinced of their truth. He would 
explain his meaning by an illustration. Mr. Spencer was 
probably acquainted with the different methods in which 
type was set up for printing. It was sometimes cast 
in stereotype plates, sometimes arranged in moveable 
forms. The latter was just as steady and solid as the 
former, and possessed this additional advantage, that if 
any word or passage was found to be incorrect, it could 
be altered and corrected : this was impossible in stereo- 
type plates. In these if an error was detected, there was 
no means of remedying it. " Now," said the Archbishop, 
u I hold my opinion in moveable forms and not in stereo- 
type." 

c He said he would give an example. About five or six 
years ago he had preached an ordination sermon on the 
subject of the prevailing tendency in the human mind to 
desire an infallible guide in religious matters. In this 
sermon he had dwelt upon the fact that when St. Paul 
was taking leave of the elders of Ephesus at Miletus, 
under the impression that he should never see them again, 
and warned them of the dangers which threatened them 
and their flocks, he yet never once alluded to the existence 
of any infallible guide, of any visible head of the Church 
on earth, St. Peter or St. Peter's successor at Eome, An- 
tioch, or elsewhere, to whom they should have recourse in 
their difficulties, and by adherence and obedience to whom 
they should keep themselves and their people from error. 
From this the Archbishop had concluded that St. Paul 
did not know of the existence of any such guide. He 



•2.50 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1*51 

could not on any other supposition account for the 
Apostle's silence on such a subject at such a time. And 
he felt the more strongly convinced that this view of the 
matter was correct from the circumstance that, although 
Dr. O'Connell of Waterford had undertaken to reply fcc 
this sermon, yet he left this point, the prominent one in 
the discourse, unnoticed. u Still." said the Archbishop, 
•'if you. Mr. Spencer, or any member of tout church, can 
give any satisfactory account of the Apostle's conduct on 
this mem irable occasion consistent with the views of the 
Church of Borne as :: the existence of an infallible and 
visible head of the Church on earth. I am open to convic- 
tion ; I am ready to change my opinion on the subject, 
when it is shown to be erroneous.' 8 

• Mr. Spencer, however, was evidently unable to furnish 
any such explanation. He appeared restless and uneasy 
from the moment the Archbishop introduced the subject 
of infallibility. He rose from his seat, and his good 
manners alone prevented his leaving the room before his 
Grace had finished speaking. As soon as he concluded, 
however, he briefly remarked that Dr. West had kindly 
forwarded him a copy of the sermon tc which his Grace 
been alluding, and without making any comment 
upon it, said that having now disposed :: the business in 
reference to which he had taken the liberty of waiting 
upon the Archbishop, he would beg leave to withdraw.' 

The following letter to Mrs. Arnold throws more light 
on the then state of Ireland, and especially of the suffering 
clergy. The little book alluded to in it, * Paddy's L-risure 
Hours in the Poor-h : use,' is a tale illustrative of the effects 

of the Irish famine and Poor law, written by a friend, and 
published under his patronage, which at the time excited 
much interest, from the truthful and vivid manner in 
which the facts of the case were brought forward. 

'Dublin: April 15, 1S51. 

ff My dear Mrs. Arnold, — The second part :: No. 5 of 

the " Cautions " I do not send you, as it does more g 



JEt. 64] LETTER TO MBS. ARNOLD. 251 

to have it ordered at a shop ; so I only notify to you, and 
beg you to make known its being out. But I have ordered 
for you the new edition of " Paddy's Meditations/' with an 
addition which I think excellent. I trust you will promote 
the sale of this also, if you can, as any profit from it will 
go to the starving clergy of Ireland. Our funds for their 
relief are nearly exhausted ; but their distress is far from 
beino- at an end. Several have to pav. out of a small in- 
come, eight or ten or twelve shillings in the pound for 
poor-rate, and withal they have not the satisfaction of 
seeing the poor relieved. The workhouses are crowded 
with paupers doing nothing, while the fields are lying 
untilled, from the capital which would have employed 
labourers having been abused in keeping men idle. The 
paupers are like Pharaoh's lean kine, who ate up the fat 
ones, and yet were still as lean as ever. 

' Miss , the friend of Jane's friend, Mrs. , is 

much pleased with numbers three and five, but does not 
like two and four — I suspect from the very circumstance 
that makes those the greatest favourites with most, the 
familiar illustrations. There are persons of minds so 
constituted that I am convinced many of our Lord's 
parables would seem to them (if seen for the first time, 
and without knowledge of the author) extremely inde- 
corous. They cannot distinguish between comparing 
together two things or persons, and comparing the cases 
or transactions relating to those things ; and thence would 
suppose it affirmed that Christians are actually like fishes, 
or fig-trees, or sheep. 

; And again, if any fallacy or folly which has been con- 
nected with religion is ridiculed, they cannot distinguish 
this from ridicule of the religion itself; as if they were to 
deem it an injury to a tree to clear away the lichen and 
moss, and other parasites that had overgrown it. 

6 And again, there are some whose organ of veneration 
seems to be concentrated on words instead of things. 
Such a person is not scandalised at F. Newman's saying, 
with most decorous gravity, that our Lord was a faulty 
character ; but when a piece of modern history is narrated 



252 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [1851 

in the style of our authorised version of Scripture, for the 
purpose of showing how open it would be to the kind of 
cavils with which sacred history has been assailed, this is 
regarded as horrible profanation ! I could not but com- 
pare this whimsical inconsistency (as it seems to me) to 
the conduct of the people of Hawaii (Owhyhee), who 
murdered Captain Cook, and cut his body to pieces, but 
— regarding him, as it seems they did, as a being of 
superior order — carried about with them pieces of his 
bones as a kind of amulets, which they regarded with 
superstitious veneration. You may show this to K. (I beg 
pardon, Mrs. Forster), as I know she does not mind my 
speaking my mind freely.' 

The ' Creeds of Christendom,' by Mr. Greg, had just 
appeared: and many were naturally anxious to see this 
attack on Christianity answered by an able hand. Mrs. 
Arnold wrote to the Archbishop, mentioning the earnest 
wish expressed by Mr. Graves, a clergyman in her neigh- 
bourhood, that he (the Archbishop) should undertake this 
task himself. The following is his answer : — 

' April 26. 1851. 

'My dear Mrs. Arnold, — After reading the enclosed, 
please to forward it. 

6 1 am honoured by Mr. Graves's belief that I am capable 
of answering Mr. Greg, but I trust he is mistaken in 
thinking that no one else could, for it does not answer to 
have many irons in the fire. Men sometimes make the 
same mistake as to their powers and their time, that many 
do as to their income. I have known a man who thought, 
and truly, that he could afford to keep hounds, and that 
his income would admit of a fine conservatory ; and that 
he might sit in Parliament ; and that he could keep a 
house in town, and give fine parties ; but, like many 
others, he attempted all, and was ruined. In like manner, 
some are tempted to engage in this and that and the other 
work, from feeling conscious that they could accomplish 



^£t. 64] ATTENDS THE SESSION, 253 

any one ; and so they leave them all unfinished, or so ill- 
done that they had better have been left alone. 

' I, in particular, have less work in me than many 
others, and my only chance of doing anything well is — 
though I cannot exclude interruptions, yet — to be very 
careful not to attempt too much. It may seem strange to 
many that those little volumes of lectures — most of them 
ready written, as sermons — took me, in merely preparing 
for the press, about four months' incessant work ; I mean 
that I never let a single day pass without doing something 
to them. And the little tract on religious worship, which 
was almost entirely a compilation, took me, in like manner, 
six months ! 

6 I am now engaged with the " Cautions ; " l that is, in 
merely giving suggestions from time to time, and revising. 
If anything in Mr. Greg's book should seem to call for 
notice in the " Cautions," we will see about it. But if, in 
a dition to all my unavoidable official business, I were to 
turn aside from the " Cautions," and enter on some new 
field, the result would be that I should fail in all. It is 
vain for me to set up for an " admirable Crichton." ' 

The Archbishop was now in parliament, but not attend- 
ing very regularly. 2 He was residing near London, and 
much harassed by family anxiety and sickness. 

1 The compilation entitled ' Cantions for the Times.' 

2 He spoke, however, this year rather more frequently than usual ; on 
the bill for removing the disqualification of the Jews, on transportation, 
and on the projects for the revival of convocation — as to which he alwavs 
abode by the opinion, that a regular government for the Church was de- 
sirable, but a clerical convocation most objectionable. Speaking of the 
assumption that the party calling for its assembly was the most numerous. 
he told, after his manner, the following story : — ' He was informed once 
that a violent opposition existed in a particular parish to a proposed altera- 
tion of a road, at which he was very much surprised, because the alteration 
was conducive to public convenience. In order to ascertain the real opinion 
of the inhabitants of the district, he sent to each house a black bean and a 
white bean, with directions that those who were opposed to the alterations 
should return a black bean, and vice versa. The return was twenty-nine 
black and three hundred white beans. Yet the twenty-nine black beans 
called themselves "the parish:" and it was hardly necessary to say that 
they made twice as much noise as the three hundred white beans.' 



254 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1851 

The following is to Mrs. Hill, who had asked him as to 
the truth of some report she had heard of a remark he 
had made on desultory tendencies of mind : — 

4 Nov. 23, 1851. 

' My dear Mrs. Hill, — Very likely I did say what you 
report, though I have no recollection of it. 

6 Certainly I should not recommend mathematics as the 
remedy. Though one might naturally expect that the 
fault of mere mathematicians would be an over-rigid de- 
mand for demonstration in all subjects, I have found the 
fact to be the reverse. They generally, when they come 
to any other subject, throw off all regard to order and 
accuracy, like the feasting of the Roman Catholics before 
and after Lent. With them, mathematics is " Attention ! " 
and everything else " Stand at ease ! " 

6 The defect of mathematics as an exclusive or too pre- 
dominant study is, that it has no connexion with human 
affairs, and affords no exercise of judgment, having no 
degrees of probability. 

6 On the comparison between that, and what is called 
moral reasoning, you will see some remarks in the dis- 
sertations appended to the " Logic;" and, in the "Rhetoric," 
you will see remarks on the importance of imagination in 
the study of history, which are, as far as I know, not to be 
found elsewhere. 

6 Do you know anything of the Mormonites ? They are 
an increasing sect in some parts of England, especially 
about Leamington, where a servant of ours picked up some 
of their tracts and became a half convert. The ground is 
ready ploughed for their seed by such writers as are noticed 
in " Cautions," xi. and xii., and by those who act on their 
principles. 

6 1 want some one to write a little tract to open the eyes 
of the poor people in England, in a style and of a shape 
and size suitable to them ; but I myself, and all those I 
have been accustomed to employ, have their hands more 
than full for a good while to come. I wish you would try 
your hand. I can get you the materials — viz. the Mor- 



JEt. 64] ON MOKMONISM. 255 

monite tracts, and the true history of the rise of the sect ; 
for it has been well described, and the matter well in- 
vestigated for the upper classes, but not so as to reach the 
lower. The poison is retailed in the streets in halfp'orths, 
and the antidote is to be had only in large casks. Do prav 
try. 1 

6 Yours truly, 

6 Ed. Dublin.' 

1 This trial was afterwards made by Mrs. Whately, in a little tract on 
Mormonism, which had considerable circulation. 



LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TVHATELT. "_:-:2 



CHAPTEE X. 

1852. 

Visits England — The family circle at Redesdale — Letter :; C Wale — 
It:::::: Lady Isborne :_ the Sisterhoods at Plymouth and De~::_- 
::::": — 1 ::^r :: I ':■ . Hin :".- :>n Daily Services— Letter fa AGse !: bfaee — 
Opening of the 3ark Exhibition — -Letters la Mrs. Hill — Hii interest in 
Protestant Missions :: Ireland — Letter :: Mi Seniaa in :'_: '. inversions 
from B ;:_:.::::-_: — Mr. Senior visits :_r Archbishop —Mi Senior's JonrnaL 

In the early part of L852 lie paid a short visit to England, 
but the rest of the year, with the exception of his regular 
visitation tours, &c, was spent : Redesdale, where his 
daughter and hei family were again his guests. During 
a great part of the seven following years, much of their 
time was spent under the Archbishc p'src : :. and this was : : 
him an increasing source :: comfort and pleasure. In his 
son-in-law's society he had the kind of intercourse he 
most enjoyed and valued: that of a discerning, right- 
judging, and intelligent companion entering into all his 
pursuits, and fully sympathising in the high moral tone 
of his mind: while his grandchildren, as ttiey grew up 
around him. were sources : continued pleasure and in- 
terest. Naturally fond :: children, his delight in these 
little >nes wag a prominent feature in his declining life ; 
his tenderness and affection for them, and interest in their 
sj irts, were such as : >uld hardly have been looked for in 
>ne so habitually absorbed in matters of the highest 
moment. 

To ~^t children of his son he showed nc less constant 

affection and kindness : the eldest was for a considerable 

b an inmate of his family, and tie: an adopted 

child : and when, at a later period, these children were all 



JEt. 65] ON SISTERHOODS. 257 

permanently established under his roof, his interest in all 
their pleasures and concern for their enjoyment and com- 
fort was manifest. 

To Charles Wale. 

'Dublin: Feb. 15, 1852. 

' I need not say how fully I concur in what you say 
about party. It cannot be too often and earnestly urged ; 
for I find many men, and more women, not wanting in 
intelligence, and what is more, who have seen and bitterly 
experienced the evils of party, who are led by that very 
circumstance to throw themselves into the arms of a party, 
merely because it is the opposite of that which is the im- 
mediate object of their dread ; just as if experience of mili- 
tary oppression should induce some simple people to invite 
an army to rescue them. "For my part," says a poor 
woman in the Tales of the Genii, "I think all soldiers are 
rebels, for they all plunder us alike." 

' It is wonderful and shocking to perceive how those 
who are calling on men to throw off popish thraldom will 
submit, and try to force others to submit, to popes of their 
own ; and how the disregard of truth, the narrow and un- 
charitable bigotry, and the bitter persecuting spirit which 
they loudly censure in Eoman Catholics, they will at the 
same time approve in their own party.' 

The following letter to Lady Osborne explains itself. 
Much interest was excited at this time by the newly- 
published disclosures as to the working of the ' Sister- 
hoods ' at Plymouth and Devonport. 

'April 19, 1852. 

6 My dear Lady Osborne, — Have you read Mr. Spurrell's 
pamphlet?, and Miss Campbell's, on Miss Sellon's estab- 
lishment, and her answer ? They are very curious and 
important documents. You may be very sure I am fully 
aware that the High Church party are quite as ready to 
persecute when they get the upper hand, as the Low 
Church. Both are men. And both parties are equally 

s 



258 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. Ll352 

aware how utterly I am averse to every party. And it is 
quite true, as you observe, that the one will do everything 
in the name of the church-formularies, as the other does 
in that of the Bible. In truth, however, neither party 
makes either of these the real standard, but their inter- 
pretation ; which may chance to be very different from 
yours or mine. The one is ready — even avowedly — to 
understand our formularies " in a non-natural sense ; " and 
the other set down everyone, however well-read in Scrip- 
ture, as "not knowing the Grospel," who does not adopt 
their views. And it may be added, that as they adopt 
virtually the Eomish notion of an infallible interpreter of 
Scripture to whom everyone must submit his own private 
judgment, on pain of being set down as heterodox (only 
substituting their party for the pope of Rome), so they are 
equally ready with the Romanists to resort to Tradition 
when there is no Scripture to their purpose. For they 
appeal to (an alleged) tradition of the apostles having 
transferred the commands relative to the Sabbath from 
the seventh day of the week to the first — a transfer of 
which certainly Scripture gives no bint, but ratter con- 
tradicts it. Still they have this advantage over the oppo- 
site party ; that they really do encourage everyone to study 
Scripture, bitterly as they revile him if he does not adopt 
their interpretation of it ; and a man is thus enabled to 
have a chance, at least, of detecting any errors in the 
system he may have been taught. The opposite party — as 
is set forth in one of the " Cautions " — do certainly lead 
men to neglect, and ultimately avoid, the study of Scrip- 
tare.' 

To Bishop Hinds. 

' If you have time to look at that little tale I mentioned 
("Early Experiences" — Grant & Griffiths, Paternoster 
Bow), I should like your opinion on a short discussion in 
it of daily services in church ; at which discussion some 
are scandalised. 

6 The services were no doubt designed by our reformers, 
who, indeed (most unfortunately), have no special service 



^Et. 65] OPENING OF THE CORK EXHIBITION. 259 

for Sundays. But, then, in the days when so few could 
read, domestic worship and private reading of Scripture 
could not have been so general as they might be now. 

' If there were daily service in church, in those cases 
only where the minister's other duties would be equally 
well performed, it would be so far well (I mean as far as 
regards the minister). But 'there is surely a great danger 
that the mere mechanical performance of a duty (by the 
clergyman), which requires neither learning nor ability, 
nor sound judgment, nor assiduous care, nor anxious re- 
sponsibility, should seduce those who are, in mind, indo- 
lent, to substitute this for labours which call for all those 
qualifications ; that the mere turning of the handle of a 
barrel-organ should be found easier though more mono- 
tonous work, than qualifying oneself for the part of a 
good musician.' 

To Miss Crabtree. 

'Dublin: June 15, 1852. 

* I wish you would try your hand at a little parable for 
young folks ; I and my assistants are too busy with other 
things. You have often observed, I dare say, the cabbage- 
caterpillar (and perhaps others) that had been pierced by 
the ichneumon-fly. It goes on quite sound and thriving 
throughout its larva-life, feeding till the time comes at 
which it should become a pupa, and then a butterfly 
(psyche, the soul, as the Greeks called it) ; and then the 
ichneumon grubs come out, and leave an empty skin, 
having fed merely on the enclosed embryo -butterfly. How 
many of our fellow-creatures seem to be in an analogous 
condition ! 

' You might throw this into a little dialogue between a 
parent and child. 1 'Ever yours, truly, 

<Rd. Whately.' 

In this year the Cork Exhibition was opened. A course 
of lectures was delivered in the pavilion of the Exhibition 

1 A dialogue on this subject, though not by the lady addressed, did after- 
wards appear in the ' Leisure Hour.' 

s2 



260 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852 

building, and the Archbishop was requested to deliver the 
inaugural lecture of the series, on Tuesday, June 29, 1852. 
The subject of the lecture was ' Popular Education,' and 
in it he took pains to confute the favourite commonplaces 
about the danger of ' a little learning,' and to point out 
the fallacy of the assertion — at that time put forth strongly 
by the Eoman Catholics — that all departments of secular 
education should be under the direct control of religious 
teachers. 

The following letter is an answer to one of Mrs. Hill, 
in which she mentioned several instances where the Arch- 
bishop's arguments had led her to change her opinion. 

'Dublin: Sept. 18, 1852. 

'My dear Mrs. Hill, — To you I need not say what I 
have said in the Charge, that I value not a man's pro- 
fessing truth which is not truth to him. And my inti- 
macy with Dr. Arnold is alone a sufficient proof of my 
practical toleration. But what I wish you to keep in 
mind is that the vehemence of my opposition to anyone's 
views is no mark of my thinking lightly of him, but the 
reverse. 

6 1 had no idea I had altered your views on so many 
points. But you are no rule for the generality. 

' As a general rule, the water from the engine should 
be poured on the places adjoining the conflagration, but 
which are not yet on fire. 

' It is a very curious fact that you advert to, of our 
unequal sympathy with physical and mental suffering. 
As for the infiicter, he may sometimes not perceive the 
pain he is giving ; but often he does, and delights in it. 
But the bystanders, perhaps, do not so fully enter into the 
sufferer's feelings. It is remarkable, again, that to insult 
and triumph over bodily weakness is always reprobated as 
the basest cowardice ; but not so if it be natural weakness 
of understanding. 

6 Query : Is there not something besides sympathy in the 
case of physical suffering, that kind of nervous shudder 
which makes some people faint away at the description 



^Et. eo'] LETTER TO MRS. HILL. 261 

of wounds ? And may not this partly account for your 
phenomenon ? ? 

The Archbishop had proposed to Mrs. Hill to write an 
article on the slavery question, or a review of 6 Uncle Tom's 
Cabin/ which had just appeared. She urged him rather to 
undertake the work himself. 

'Sept. 27, 1852. 

'My dear Mrs Hill, — Every sermon costs me as much 
time and labour to write as to furnish the matter and 
subsequent corrections for six or seven. And I have 
more business to occupy my time and thoughts than you 
probably suppose. When you see me lounging about the 
garden and pruning a rose-bush, you probably suppose 
that I am thinking of nothing else ; when, perhaps, I am 
in fact deliberating on some weighty matters on which I 
have to decide. And all the time I can spare from duties 
which I have no right to neglect, 'is absorbed by the 
" Cautions." You, I dare say, would advise me to drop 
the " Cautions," and turn my mind to other matters. 
But though this advice might be right in itself, I should 
be very wrong in following it against my own deliberate 
judgment. I have undertaken a difficult and painful task, 
which appears to me of great importance ; and having put 
my hand to the plough, I must not look back. Since in- 
spiration has ceased, I do not see what fuller assurance 
anyone can have, that Grod wills him to do so and so, than 
his own judgment resulting from deliberate and prayerful 
reflection. His decision may not be infallibly right. If 
he could be sure of that, he would be inspired. But it 
must be right for him to follow the best guide Providence 
has vouchsafed him. Grod made the moon as well as the 
sun ; and when He does not see fit to grant us the sun- 
light, He means us to guide our steps as well as we can 
by moonlight. 

6 I dare say you will not write the article as well as it 
conceivably might be done ; but the question is between 
that and nothing. If by the subject being such as a 



262 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852 

" powerful and practised hand ought to deal with," you 
mean merely that it deserves that, I agree with you ; but 
not if you mean that a slight and imperfect notice would 
be worse than none at all. 

6 But you have, in the letter I enclose to you, nearly all 
the materials needed for a very useful article. It only 
needs hammering out. I send you also an American 
paper, lent to me, from which I would suggest your ex- 
tracting the whole of the attack on Mrs. Stowe, as a proof 
that they are very angry and much alarmed, and have no 
answer except vituperation. For they cannot and do not 
attempt to deny that all she relates may take place every 
day. You might also notice the narrative of a man's crop- 
ping his slave's ears off, in which it is implied that no 
amount of flowing; would have been censured. Indeed, 
how could it ? unless every slave had to be brought before 
a magistrate, who should allot the due amount of punish- 
ment, and see it inflicted. 

Q I hope this will find you at home and recovered. 

6 Very truly yours, 

' Ed. Dublin.' 

At this time the conversions from Romanism were 
attracting a large share of public notice in Ireland, and 
the Archbishop was no uninterested spectator of the 
struggle. 

As much misapprehension has existed as to the part he 
took with respect to Protestant missions in Ireland, it may 
be needful to add a few words of explanation here. 

It has often been alleged, and much too hastily assented to, 
that the Archbishop was opposed to controversy, especially 
upon the subject of the distinctive doctrines of Eomanism. 
One who was intimately acquainted with him for many 
years writes : ' I am not greatly surprised that such an 
impression should have prevailed to a considerable extent. 
I can recall the time when I was myself influenced by it. 
I should think it was partly caused by the limited sale of 
his " Origin of Romish Errors," compared with the great 
popularity of most of his other works, the decided manner 



iET. 65] VIEWS ON CONTROVERSIAL DISCUSSIONS. 263 

in which he openly expressed his disapproval of certain 
" controversial discussions," which had taken place ; and 
the frequency with which he was in the habit of quoting 
the proverb : " No sensible person thinks of catching birds 
by throwing stones at them." But that it was not contro- 
versy per se to which he objected, but only the manner 
and spirit in which it was often conducted, there is over- 
whelming evidence to prove. In fact, I cannot help say- 
ing that I look upon Archbishop Whately as one of the 
most decided, extensive, and varied controversialists of 
the present century. The work already referred to, " The 
Origin of Romish Errors," was published before he became 
Archbishop of Dublin. I have often heard him express 
his regret that he had been persuaded, against his own 
judgment at the time, to adopt that title, as it gave an 
inadequate idea of the design of the book, in which he 
traces not only Romish errors, but unsound religious doc- 
trines and practices generally, whether heathen or so- 
called Christian, to the corrupt tendencies of our fallen 
nature. In 1847 he preached as a sermon, and subse- 
quently published in an enlarged form, his most able and 
conclusive essay, "The Search after Infallibility." In 
1852-3 he published "Cautions for the Times," as a check 
to the Romeward tendency of the higher and intellectual 
classes ; and about the same time he furnished to the 
" Catholic Layman," in a series of articles, the admirable 
tract for the unlearned, " The Touchstone, with Answers," 
containing a complete reply to the Roman Catholic pub- 
lication of that name. At the same time he was extremely 
unwilling to have his name mixed up with the proceedings 
of any societies of an avowedly proselytising character, 
lest he should thereby seem to sanction some matters of 
detail of which he did not quite approve. But that he 
did not object to the general principle and objects of such 
societies is proved by the fact that he licensed for divine 
worship the Mission Church in Townsend Street ; and so - 
lately as in the year 1856 he gave, through my hands, 501. 
to each of the two principal organisations for direct mis- 
sions to the Roman Catholics of Ireland — " The Irish 



264 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852 

Society," and the " Society for Irish Church Missions." 
The evidence, however, which seems most conclusive in 
this matter, is that which rests upon the fact that he was 
one of the original founders of the " Society for Protect- 
ing the Eights of Conscience in Ireland" in 1850; and 
continued to take an active part in all its proceedings 
until his death ; that society having been formed for the 
express purpose of meeting and neutralising the bitter 
and wide-spread persecution excited in Ireland by the 
success of the operations of the two reformation societies 
above mentioned. I can bear testimony as well as your- 
self to the warm interest which he manifested in the pro- 
gress of the religious movement, at the same time that he 
exercised his characteristic caution as to the manner in 
which the temporal aid administered by the " Conscience 
Protection Society " was to be applied ; viz. that it should 
be simply for the protection of those who, from an honest 
conviction of the falsity of Romanism, had openly separated 
from its communion, and not as an inducement or tempta- 
tion to any to profess what they did not conscientiously 
believe.' l 

It was also with his full knowledge and sanction that 
his son-in-law, for whose judgment he had the highest 
value, was, whenever resident in Ireland, an active and 
efficient co-operator in the work of Protestant missions. 
The influence Mr. Wale exerted in the mission dormitories 
and training-schools for boys and young men is remem- 
bered and felt to this day. The Archbishop was ever 
ready to allow grants of his works, to be made to their 
libraries ; and these volumes had been studied by the 

1 *The accusation that 'Dr. Whately was habitually opposed to contro- 
versy,' if ever made, was a singular charge against one of the most active 
and hardy controversialists of his time. But this much is true, that he 
had a great dislike to see the weapons of controversy, particularly in favour 
of causes in which he felt an interest, wielded by the hands of the ignorant 
and self-confident, to the serious damage of their own party, if not of truth. 
And no doubt, in his outspoken way, he had often made free with the per- 
formances of these mischievous auxiliaries in such a manner as to render 
him subject to misrepresentation.* 



^Et. 65] IEISH CHURCH MISSIONS. 265 

Scripture readers and youths training for teachers with an 
eagerness and diligence hardly to be equalled in many 
schools of a higher class. 

And how precious and tender a memory of two others 
of the family, now also ' bidden up higher,' is interwoven 
with the Bagged Schools and the 6 Bird's Nest ' for destitute 
little ones, all who remember them well know, for they 
' being dead yet speak.' 

It may not perhaps be out of place to allude here to a 
circumstance which occurred between four and five years 
later, and which has been represented in such a way as to 
give rise to much misapprehension. In a parish in the 
immediate environs of Dublin a branch of the Irish Church 
Mission Work was carried on for some time. Serious 
charges against the agents employed there, and against 
the society itself, were formally brought under the Arch- 
bishop's notice in the latter part of the year 1857; and 
it has been alleged, that in consequence of what occurred 
upon that occasion, the Archbishop desired the agency of 
the society to be removed from the parish. This is by no 
means a correct statement of the facts. A lengthened 
investigation of the charges took place in the Archbishop's 
presence. Several witnesses were examined on both sides ; 
but none of the charges against the Irish Church Missions 
were proved so as to draw from the Archbishop a verdict 
or decision. At the conclusion of the proceedings, how- 
ever, the Archbishop said that the fact of the incumbent 
of the parish (who was also present) being dissatisfied with 
the state of things, was sufficiently decisive as to the 
necessity for discontinuance of the operations of the 
Mission in the district, in conformity with the funda- 
mental rules of the society. The agency was accordingly 
withdrawn at once, without, however, affecting in any 
way its working in other parts of Dublin. 

At this time the Archbishop received a visit from Mr. 
Senior, during which much interesting conversation passed, 
which was recorded by Mr. Senior in a journal he was in 
the habit of keeping whenever he was staying from home. 



"266 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852 

Some extracts from the pages of this journal may find a 
fitting place here. 

Extract from Mr. Senior's Journal. 

'Oct. 8, 1852. 

< We posted to Redesdale, Archbishop Whately's country 
place, about five miles from Dublin, nearly opposite to 
Kingstown Harbour. Nature meant the road to be an 
open terrace, between the sea and the mountains. Man 
has made it a dirty lane, twisting between high walls. 
Almost all the country near Dublin is cut into squares, 
each with its wall without and its fringe of trees within, 
merely ugly in summer, but damp and unwholesome in 
winter. 

6 We talked after dinner about Puseyism. I asked if it 
was prevalent in Ireland ? 

' " Not so prevalent," answered the Archbishop, " as in 
England ; but it exists. I was told that we should escape 
it — that, as we have the real thing, we should not adopt 
the copy — but I was sure that it would come. Ireland 
catches every disease after it has passed over England. 
Cholera came to us after you had had it, so did the potato 
rot, so did Puseyism." 

' u I am inclined," I said, u to think that it is diminish- 
ing in England." 

4 " Diminishing," said the Archbishop, " in its old head- 
quarters, Oxford, but increasing in the country parishes. 
The tidal wave, after it has begun to ebb in the ocean, 
still rises in the bays and creeks. Those who were taught 
Puseyism fifteen years ago, are now teaching it in their 
villages." 

' " I heard the lessons read," said , " by a young 

Puseyite, and they were mumbled over, so as to be scarcely 
intelligible." 

6 " I heard, or rather did not hear them read in the 
same way in Margaret Street chapel," said . 

6 " What is the explanation of this ? " I said. u The 
Puseyites cannot wish to show disrespect to Scripture ? " 



Mt. fi5] MK. SENIOR'S JOURNAL. 267 

' " I do not pretend," said the Archbishop, " to be master 
of all the details of Puseyism ; but its general theory is, 
religion by proxy. The priest is not only to pray, but to 
believe for the laity. To them the raw Bible is dangerous. 
They ought not to receive it until he has cooked it. The 
lessons ought not to be read at all, or they ought to be 
read in Latin ; or, if they must be read in English, they 
should be hurried over, so as to let them give as little 
knowledge and do as little harm as possible.*' 

' We conversed on the appointment of bishops by the 
ministry. The Archbishop said, that to choose them 
without reference to their opinions on the education 
question, was to send arms and ammunition to the Cape, 
and to be utterly indifferent whether they fell into the 
hands of the Queen's troops or of the Caffres. He had 
observed this to a leading statesman, who answered that 
this impartiality would give him a much wider choice, " I 
ventured," said the Archbishop, (i to doubt this." 

fC6 Of course," I said, "if you mean, that, by ignoring 
the existence of the opposition between the friends and the 
enemies of mixed education, you will be able to select your 
bishop from among a larger number of clergymen, that is 
obviously true. I even believe that, if you were to select 
exclusively from among its enemies, you would find more 
clergymen to choose from than if you selected exclusively 
from among its friends; but if your object be to choose 
from the fittest men, I do not think that considering 
hostility to mixed education no disqualification will enlarge 
your field of choice in the least. If I had to point out 
the half-dozen best men in all other respects — the men 
who, if there were no Education Board, would be the fittest 
for promotion — I should have to take them all from 
among the friends of mixed education." I do not think, 
however, that I convinced him. 

' " I suppose," I said, u that you adhere to your old 
opinion as to the abolition of the Lord Lieutenancy ? " 

6 " I feel it," he said, " more strongly every day. No 
friend to the L^nion, no friend to good government, can 
wish to retain that office. Those who hear that the Lord 



268 LIRE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852 

Lieutenant is kept at work ail day, and perhaps half the 
night, infer that he must have much to do. I have served 
the office for months at a time. The Lords Justices, in 
the absence of the Lord Lieutenant, perform all his duties. 
except those connected with patronage and representation. 
They are not employed for three hours in a week. The 
Lord Lieutenant's days and nights are wasted on intrigue 
and party squabbles, on the management of the press and 
the management of ' fetes ; ' on deciding what ruined 
gambler is to have this stipendiary magistracy, and what 
repealer is to be conciliated by asking his wife and 
daughters to a concert — in short, on things nine-tenths of 
which cannot be so well treated as by being left alone. 
The abolition of this phantom of independence is the first 
step towards the consolidation of the two countries. I 
must add; that, attached as I am to regal government, 
yet, if we changed our sovereign every time that we 
changed our ministry, I had rather take refuge in some 
more stable form of constitution, though of an inferior 
kind." 

6 " Would you retain," I said, " the Irish Office ? " 
6 " Certainly not," answered the Archbishop, " I would 
no more have an Irish Office than a Welsh Office. The 
bane of Ireland is the abuse of its patronage ; what Lord 
Eosse says of the stipendiary magistrates is true of every 
other Irish appointment. Fitness is the only claim that 
is disregarded ; this would be bad enough anywhere, but 
it is peculiarly mischievous in a highly centralized country, 
where the bureaucratic influence is felt in every fibre. 
Now the concentration of the Irish patronage in the hands 
of one or two persons resident in Ireland is favourable to 
this abuse. The English public is accustomed to consider 
Irish appointments as things done in Ireland by Irishmen, 
and for Irishmen, with which it has no concern. It thinks it 
probable that, like everything else that is Irish, they are 
very bad, but does not hold that the English government 
is responsible for them. A Prime Minister or a Home 
Secretary would not bear the disgrace of the jobs which 
are expected from a Lord Lieutenant or from a Secretary 



2Et. 65] MR. SENIOR'S JOURNAL. 2G9 

for Ireland. He would both be subject to a less pressure, 
and would be better able to resist it. 

' " In a country in which the aristocratic element is 
strong," continued the Archbishop, "we must submit to 
see men promoted in consequence of their birth and con- 
nexions; in a country subject to parliamentary govern- 
ment we must expect to see functionaries selected rather 
to serve the party than to serve the public. It is only a 
government like that of Louis Napoleon that can give its 
patronage only to merit. But in Ireland a third element 
interferes to disturb all our appointments, that is to say, 
the religious element. It has been the principle of some 
viceroys to favour the Eoman Catholics ; that of others to 
favour the Protestants, and I have heard of departments 
in which the vacancies were filled from each sect alter- 
nately, and Papists and Protestants were disposed like the 
squares on a chessboard. . . . We probably could not 
escape this abuse altogether if the appointments were 
made in England, but I think there would be less of it." 

4U Do you find," I asked, "any marked difference be- 
tween your Eoman Catholic and Protestant inspectors ? " 

4 " Not," he answered, " a marked difference ; the Pro- 
testants I think are rather the best. I am told that in 
the higher departments of the public service the difference 
is marked, and that the Protestants are by far the best 
public servants, and I should expect it to be so. In the 
lower and middle classes the education received by the 
children of both sexes is nearly the same; but in the 
higher classes the Protestants have until now been edu- 
cated, not well perhaps, but much better than the Eoman 
Catholics. Let us hope that the Queen's Colleges will re- 
move this distinction, and place both classes on an equality, 
elevating each, but raising most that which is now the 
lower." 

' a Under any training," I said, " Catholicism must be 
unfavourable to mental development. A man who has 
been accustomed to abstain from exercising his reason on 
the most important subjects to which it can be applied, 
can scarcely feel the earnest anxiety for truth, the deter- 



270 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852 

mination to get to the bottom of every question that he 
considers, which is the principal stimulus to improvement 
in the higher branches of knowledge. This does not ap- 
ply to higher laymen in France or Italy, for they do not 
believe in the peculiarities of Catholicism, but it must 
always injure the minds of the English and Irish Catholics 
who do." 

' The Archbishop is president of the " Society for pro- 
tecting the Eights of Conscience." For some time a con- 
siderable conversion to Protestantism has been going on 
in Ireland. The converts are to be numbered by thousands 
-—not by hundreds. 

' I asked to what these conversions were to be attributed ? 
What were the causes which had suddenly opened men's 
minds to arguments which had been addressed to them 
for years without success ? 

' " The causes," said the Archbishop, " must be numer- 
ous ; it is not probable that I am acquainted with them 
all, or that I assign to those which occur to me their 
relative importance . . but I will tell you all that I 
know or conjecture, and I will also tell you what opinions 
are current. Many persons think that it is owing to the 
general diffusion of Bibles, Testaments, and Prayer-books, 
by the societies instituted for those purposes. But those 
societies have been at work for many years, and the con- 
versions on the present scale are recent. Others believe, 
or profess to believe, that the conversions are purchased. 
This is the explanation given by the Eoman Catholics. 
An old woman went to one of my clergy and said : ' I am 
come to surrender to your reverence, and I want the leg 
of mutton and the blanket.' 'What leg of mutton and 
blanket ? ' said the clergyman ; * I have scarcely enough of 
either for myself and my family, and certainly none to 
give. Who could have put such nonsense into your head ? ' 
6 Why, sii',' she said, ' Father Sullivan told us that the con- 
verts each got a leg of mutton and a blanket, and as I am 
famished, and starving with cold, I thought that God 
would forgive me for getting them.' 

' " But our society has for months been challenging 



Mt. 65] MR. SENIORS JOURNAL. 271 

those who spread this calumny to prove it. We circulate 
queries, asking for evidence, that rewards or inducements 
have been held out, directly or indirectly, to persons to 
profess themselves converts. Not only has no case been 
substantiated, no case has been even brought forward. 
Instead of being bribed, the converts, until they are 
numerous enough in any district to protect one another, 
are oppressed by all the persecution that can be inflicted 
in a lawless country by an unscrupulous priesthood, 
hounding on a ferocious peasantry. Another explanation 
is, that it is owing to the conduct of the priests during 
the O'Brien rebellion. The priests, it is said, lost their 
popularity by exciting the people and then deserting them. 
The fact is true, but it is not enough to account for con- 
versions in many parts of Ireland which were not agitated 
by that movement. 

'"Another theory is, that it is mainly owing to the 
different conduct of the Protestant and the Eoman 
Catholic clergy during the famine. The Protestant clergy 
literally shared their bread, or rather their meal, with 
their parishioners, without the least sectarian distinction 
— they devoted all their time, all their energy, all their 
health, and all that the Poor Law left them of their small 
revenues, to those who were starving round them. Their 
wives and daughters passed their days in soup-kitchens 
and meal rations. 

6 " The Roman Catholic clergy were not sparing of their 
persons — they lived, and a great many of them died, 
among the sick; but the habit of the clergy is never to 
give ; there is a division of labour between them and the 
laity — they take faith, and the laity good works, at least, 
as far as almsgiving is a good work. A great part of 
them, indeed, during the famine, had nothing to give; 
they starved with their flocks, when their flocks ceased to 
pay dues. But others had means of their own, and many 
of those who took part in the distribution of the Govern- 
ment money or of the English subscriptions, helped them- 
selves out of the funds which passed through their hands 
to what they considered to be the amount due to them 



272 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852 

from the people. But no part of their revenues, however 
obtained, found its way to the poor. Their incomes were 
spent during the famine as they were spent before it 5 and 
as they are now spent — on themselves, or hoarded until 
they could be employed in large subscriptions to chapels or 
convents. And this was not the worst. In many cases they 
refused to those who could not or who would not pay for 
them, the sacraments of their church. In ordinary times 
this may be excusable ; a clergy unendowed and unsalaried 
must be supported by voluntary contributions or by dues. 
In so poor a country as Ireland voluntary contribution 
cannot be relied on. The priest might often starve if he 
did not exact his dues, and as he has no legal rights, his 
only mode of exacting them is to make their payment the 
condition on which his ministrations are performed. But 
during the famine payment was obviously impossible. 
When, under such circumstances, the sacraments which 
the priest affirmed to be necessary passports to heaven 
were refused, the people could not avoid inferring either 
that the priest let men sink into eternal torment, to avoid 
a little trouble to himself, or that absolution or extreme 
unction could not be essential to salvation. 

i<mi I believe that this explanation is not without its 
truth, and that the influence of the Eoman Catholic clergy 
has been weakened by the contrast of their conduct to 
that of ours. But I am inclined to attach more import- 
ance to the acquisition by the Protestant clergy of the 
Irish language. Until within a few years Protestant doc- 
trines had never been preached in Irish. The rude 
inhabitants of the remote districts in Minister and Con- 
naught believed that English was the language of heretics, 
and Irish that of saints. The devil, they said, cannot 
speak Irish. 

' " About ten years ago, on my first visitation, after 
the province of Cashel had been put under my care, I 
asked all the clergy what proportion of their parishioners 
spoke nothing but Irish. In many cases the proportion 
was very large ' And do you speak Irish ? ' I asked. 
'No, my lord.' 'I am very sorry to hear it,' I replied. 



JEt. 65] MR. SENIOR'S JOURNAL. 273 

' Oh,' the clergyman always said, ' all the Protestants 
speak English.' 'That is just what I should have ex- 
pected,' I replied ; ' under the circumstances of the case it 
would be strange indeed if any who speak only Irish were 
Protestants. 5 This sort of dialogue became much rarer 
on my second triennial visitation, and at my last there 
was scarcely any occasion for it. There are now very few 
of my clergy who cannot make themselves understood by 
all their parishioners, and I am told that the effect of this 
vernacular preaching is very great. 

' " The great instrument of conversion, however, is the 
diffusion of Scriptural education. Archbishop Murray 
and I agreed i» desiring large portions of the Bible to be 
read in our iNational Schools; but we agreed in this 
because we disagreed as to its probable results. 

' " He believed that they would be favourable to Koman- 
ism. I believed that they would be favourable to Protest- 
antism ; and I feel confident that I was right. For twenty 
years large extracts from the New Testament have been 
read in the majority of the National Schools, far more 
diligently than that book is read in ordinary Protestant 
places of education. 

6 " The Irish, too, are more anxious to obtain knowledge 
than the English. When on the Queen's visit she asked 
for a holiday in the National Schools, the children sub- 
mitted to that compliment being paid to her, but they 
considered themselves as making a sacrifice. The conse- 
quence is, that the majority of the Irish people, between 
the ages of twenty and thirty, are better acquainted with 
the New Testament than the majority of the English 
are. 

' " Though the priest may still, perhaps, denounce the 
Bible collectively, as a book dangerous to the laity, he 
cannot safely object to the Scripture extracts, which are- 
read to children with the sanction of the prelates of his 
own Church. . . . But those extracts contain so much 
that is inconsistent with the whole spirt of Eomanism, 
that it is difficult to suppose that a person well acquainted 

T 



274 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852 

with them can be a thorough-going Boman Carbolic. 
Trie principle on which that Church is constructed, the duty 

renders any doubt fatal A man who is commanded not 
; ;> think for himself, if he rinds that he cannot avoid doing 

claims a ri^ht to think for him. has preached doctrines. 

what he ha- read in the b-ospels. his trust in its infalli- 
bility, the foundations on which its whole system of fair] 
is built, is at an end. 

* ■'•' Such I believe to be the process by which the minds 
of a large portion of the Boman Cathodes hove men pre- 
pared, and are now being prepared, for the reception of 
Protestant doctrines. The education supplied' by vie 
National Board is graiually undermining the vast fabric 
of the Irish Boman Catholic Church. 

* •• Tw:> things only are necessary on the part of the 
Government. One is. that it adhere resolutely, not only 

of the Queen is entitle!, but '■\\L\\ all her subjects do not 
obtain in Ireland. >ime of the persecutions t:> which 
they are exposed are beyond the reach of the law, It 
cannot force the Boman Catholics to associate with them. 

cannot protect them from moral excommunication To 
mitigate, ana if possible to remedy, those sufferings is the 

public is aware of its ne:essity. we snaii ootain funds 

ani assassination. This promotion rhe State can give : 
them, end this protection thev ;:■: not \ " 



iET. 65] MR. SENIOR'S JOURNAL. 275 

6 " I quite agree with Lord Rosse, that an improvement 
in penal justice is the improvement most wanted in 
Ireland." 

6 My brother and I walked with the Archbishop to 
Blackrock. We talked of the Education Board. 

'" A year ago," said my brother, "the country gentle- 
men of the north, who used to be its fierce opponents, 
were gradually coming round. They would prefer, indeed, 
a grant for Protestant Schools, but, as that seemed im- 
possible, they were beginning to support mixed education. 
The change of ministry, by reviving their hopes of a sepa- 
rate grant, has stopped them. They are waiting to see 
how the Government will act." 

' " In England," I said, u we believe that Lord Derby 
will not venture to propose such a grant. He cannot 
propose a grant for purposes exclusively Protestant with- 
out proposing one for purposes exclusively Catholic, and 
the Maynooth debate must have convinced him that such 
a grant as the latter he cannot carry." 

' " What I fear," said the Archbishop, " is a measure 
which, though not avowedly sectarian, may be so practi- 
cally. I fear that a grant may be offered to any patron 
who will provide such secular education as the Government 
shall approve, leaving him to furnish such religious educa- 
tion as he may himself approve. If this be done the 
schools in the Roman Catholic districts will be so many 
Maynooths, so many hotbeds of bigotry and religious ani- 
mosity. Nor will the Protestant schools be much better. 
The great object of the teachers in each will be contro- 
versial theology, and secular instruction, and even moral 
instruction, will be neglected. I believe, as I said the 
other day, that mixed education is gradually enlightening 
the mass of the people, and that, if we give it up, we give 
up the only hope of weaning the Irish from the abuses of 
Popery. But I cannot venture openly to profess this 
opinion. I cannot openly support the Education Board 
as an instrument of conversion. I have to fight its battle 
with one hand, and that my best, tied behind me. 

' " One of the difficulties," he continued, " in working 

T 2 



276 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [1552 

the mixed system arises from the difference in character 
of the parties who have to work it. Much is necessarily- 
left to their honour. If the patron or the master choose 
to violate the rules of the Board, he may often do so with- 
out detection. Our inspectors are too few to exercise more 
than a partial superintendence, and too ill paid to be 
iways trustworthy. Xow I must say that the Protestants 
more strongly feel, or at least observe more faithfully, the 
obligation of honour and of promises than the Roman 
Catholics. The more zealous Protestants keep aloof from 
the system of mixed education, because it ties their hands. 
They cannot, without a breach of faith, teach in our 
schools their own peculiar doctrines ; or, rather, they can 
teach them only at particular times and to particular 
classes ; they naturally wish to make them a part of the 
ordinary instruction ; they support, therefore, only schools 
of their own, where their hands are free. 

* " The zealous Eoman Catholics are less scrupulous : 
their hands are free everywhere. With all its defects, how- 
ever — and many of those defects would be remedied by a 
grant not so grossly inadequate as that which it now 
receives — we must adhere to the system of mixed educa- 
tion. 

6 " The control which it gives to us is not perfect, but it 
is very great. It secures the diffusion of an amount of 
secular and religious instruction such as Ireland never 
enjoyed before its institution, and certainly would not 
enjoy if it were to be overthrown; and it prevents the 
diffusion of an amount of superstition, bigotry, intoler- 
ance, and religious animosity, I really believe more 
extensive and more furious than any that we have yet 
encountered. " 

' " Would you support," I asked, " Maynooth ? " 

'"I am not sure,*' answered the Archbishop, "that its 
original institution was wise. Mr. Pitt thought that the 
young priests were taught disaffection and anti-Anglicism 
at Douai, and he created for their education the most 
disaffected and the most anti-English establishment in 



.Et. 65] MR. SENIOR S JOURNAL. 277 

Europe ; but, having got it, we must keep it. While the 
grant was annual, it might have been discontinued ; now 
that it is permanent, to withdraw or even to diminish it 
would be spoliation. It would be a gross abuse of the 
preponderance in Parliament of the British members. 
We have no more right to deprive the Irish Roman 
Catholics, against their will, of the provision which we 
have made for the education of their clergy, than they 
would have, if they were numerically superior, to pass 
an Act for the sale of the colleges and the estates of Oxford 
and Cambridge, and the application of the produce in re- 
duction of the national debt. 

6 "I bear," he said, turning to my brother, "that you 
reason somewhat in the same way respecting the Eccle- 
siastical Titles Act ; that, admitting it to have been a very 
unwise measure, yet, now that it has passed, you would 
act on it. I agree with you, that to advance in order to 
retreat, to pass an Act and then to be afraid to enforce 
it, is very mischievous. But in this case we have to 
choose between two mischiefs ; and I am convinced that 
to attempt to enforce the Act would be the greater 
mischief." 

' " And yet,''' I said, " you concurred in wishing the Act 
to be extended to Ireland." 

6 " What I concurred in," said the Archbishop, " was 
not in wishing that such an Act should be passed for the 
British Islands, for I utterly disapprove of it, but in 
wishing that it should not be passed for England alone. 
I believed the Act, if general, to be a great evil, but a 
still greater evil if confined to England. It was saying to 
the English Eoman Catholics, You are weak and loyal, 
therefore we trample on you : to the Irish, You are strong 
and rebellious, therefore we leave you alone." 

' " To return," I said, " to Maynooth ; what is your im- 
pression as to the education there ? " 

' " I believe," said the Archbishop, te that it is very 
poor ; that little is studied except controversial theology, 
and that very imperfectly. Hercules Dickinson, a son of 



278 , LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1852-3 

the poor Bishop of Meath, had a long discussion the other 
day with a Eoman Catholic priest. The priest maintained 
that if the authority of the Church was not infallible we 
had no certain guide; that the text of the Scriptures 
might be falsified ; and that we could not rely on our 
Old Testament^ as we do not possess it in the original 
Greek." ' 



-£t. 66] OX THACKERAY'S NOVELS. 279 



CHAPTER XL 

1853. 

Letter to Mr. Senior on Thackeray's Novels — "Withdraws from the National 
Education Board — Letter of Condolence to Dr. Hinds — Letter to Mrs. 
Hill — Visits his Daughter in Cambridgeshire — Letter to Mrs. Arnold — 
Letter to Miss G-urney on the Jewish Emancipation Bill — Return to 
Dublin — Letter to Dr. Daubeny on Botanical Subjects — Letter to Miss 
Crabtree — Publishes the 'Hopeful Tracts' — Letters to Mrs. Hill — His 
inner life — Persecutions of Protestant Converts in Workhouses — Letter 
to Mr. Senior — Letter to Mrs. Arnold — Letter to Dr. Daubeny — Letter 
to Mr. Senior- — Takes a prominent part in the Petition for Registration 
and Inspection of Nunneries. 

The earliest letter before us, of the year 1853, is a 
criticism on Mr. Senior's review of Thackeray's works. It 
will be found in the posthumous volume of Mr. Senior's 
reviews, entitled £ Essays on Fiction.' 

'Jan. 12, 1853. 

' My dear Senior, — I have read your article, as usual, 
with delight and instruction; but I am the less able to 
judge, from not having been able to get through any of 
Thackeray's novels except u Vanity Fair." " Pendennis " 
I got weary of, and laid it aside ; " Vanity Fair " I got 
weary of too, but went through it. His characters are either 
so disgustingly odious, or else so mawkishly silly — some 
of the characters are so unnaturally "inconsistent," viz. 
they are too good to be such fools as he represents them — 
that I cannot take an interest in them. 

6 If you were to serve up a dinner with top dish a roasted 
fox, stuffed with tobacco and basted with train oil, and at 
bottom an old ram goat, dressed with the hair on, and 
seasoned with assafcetida., the side dishes being plain boiled 
rice, this would give an idea of what his fictions are to my 
taste. You will see that I agree with your censures, as I 



280 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

do also with your commendations, only that I should make 
the former stronger and the latter fainter. 

•What you formerly said about the ••' amusing 5 * being 
preferable to the u interesting.*' I fully agree with : but 
the amusement afforded by Thackeray is so mixed with 
disgust, that, as I heard an intelligent person say the other 
day. " I should never think of reading a page of his a 
second time." 5 Now, Shakespeare and W. Scott, and Miss 
Austen and Mitford, &c, I can look at again and again 
with amusement.' 

It was in this year that the events occurred which led 
to the Archbishop's final withdrawal from the National 
Education Board. Much misapprehension has existed 
with respect to the reasons which occasioned this with- 
drawal ; the letters which follow will best point out the 
motives which actuated him; but a few words of explana- 
tion may not be out of place here. 

When the rules of the Education Board were first drawn 
up, the Archbishop had been far from expecting that ex- 
tracts from Scripture would have been permitted in the 
regular lesson books, but they, as well as the ' Easy Les- 
sons on Christian Evidences,' drawn up by the Archbishop 
in 1837. received the distinct and full sanction of Dr. 
Murray, then Eoman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. 

It is important to dwell on this point, because it has 
been alleged that Dr. Murray did not give his formal 
sanction, but only abstained from prohibiting it, and that 
this negative approval was taken as a deliberate and 
official sanction. This statement is sufficiently answered 
by recalling the rules of the Board with respect to books 
brought before them. 

No book could be placed on their list without the 
unanimous sanction of all the members of the Board. If 
there was a dissentient voice the book was not placed on 
the list at all, therefore such a thing as a negative sanction 
was utterly impossible. The very rules of the Society put 
it out of the question ; and thus the fact of these books 
being placed on the list, and used in the schools, was a 



Mt. 66] NATIONAL EDUCATION BOARD. 281 

sufficient guarantee for their having had the sanction of 
every individual member. 

Dr. Murray, to whose high character all who knew him, 
however differing from him in views, bore full testimony, 
never shrank from avowing his approbation of the works 
in question ; and this is proved by a letter referred to by 
Dr. Sullivan, in page 382 of the Report of the Committee 
of the House of Lords on Irish Education in 1854. This 
letter, dated October 21, 1838, was addressed by Dr. 
Murray to all his brother prelates in Ireland, with one 
exception. In it he expresses the strongest approbation 
of the Scripture extracts, and adds, ' They are so con- 
structed that they may be used in common by all the 
pupils. The notes, therefore, that are appended to them 
do not advocate the discriminating doctrines of any par- 
ticular class of Christians. It would be unfair in us to 
expect that a book to be used at the time of joint instruc- 
tion should unfold any peculiar views of religion. The 
sacred text which it contains supplies much of sacred 
history, and much of moral precept, with which it is 
highly important that all should be acquainted; while 
the notes which are added are such as can give no just 
cause of offence to any other denomination of Christians. 51 

Such are Dr. Murray's views of the extracts, and the 
request made (with one exception) by his brother prelates 
that he would continue to act as commissioner (in reply 
to his proposal of resigning) did in fact commit them all to 
the same view. But when, at the death of Dr. Murray, a 
new primate was appointed, a change took place in the 

1 Archbishop Murray ever bore a generous and candid testimony to Arch- 
bishop Whately's merit. In the same letter in which he speaks of the 
Scripture extracts, he thus alludes to him: 'No matter how he may differ 
from me in his religious belief, I am sure nothing that was not kind and 
liberal could come from that eminent individual.' This testimony was the 
more striking, because all knew that Archbishop Whately was no neutral or 
lukewarm Protestant, nor one inclined to make light of the difference be- 
tween his views and those of the Church of Borne. It was as an honest 
and fair-minded opponent that Dr. Murray esteemed him. It may here be 
observed, that although through their life they were on terms of cordial good 
understanding and friendliness, their intercourse together was entirely official, 
and this by mutual agreement, each seeing that the course pursued was the 
most expedient under the circumstances. 



282 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

course pursued by the members of the Church of Rome 
as regarded the National Board. The lessons on Evidences 
and the Scripture Extracts were voted prohibited books, 
and the Roman Catholic children and teachers forbidden, 
one and all, to use them. 

The Board on this resolved to meet specially to discuss 
what steps to take. The Archbishop intimated to them 
that he would take no part in the discussion, and even 
avoided attending the meetings till their decision had 
been made. 

The resolution to which the majority of the members 
came, was to take the obnoxious books off the list. The 
Archbishop considered this as virtually a breach of faith 
with the public. In the first instance, the Board might 
have decided as they thought best, as to receiving or 
rejecting any given work, and in such decisions he would 
have acquiesced, even though differing in judgment from 
them as to details; but having deliberately sanctioned 
these works, and used them for years, and many having 
been induced to place their schools under the Board on 
the strength of these very books, he felt they had no right 
to withdraw the sanction they had given. On this ground, 
and as a question of justice and straightforward dealing, 
he considered it his duty to withdraw his connexion with 
the Board. 

That this was a step not taken without much pain and 
mortification, no one who knew him could doubt ; but his 
personal feeling to the Board w%s so far from unfriendly, 
that he continued to pay the salary of a regular catechist, 
a clergyman of the Church of England, who attended the 
model schools in Dublin weekly, to give religious instruc- 
tion to the members of the Established Church, both 
pupils and teachers in training. And up to a few weeks 
before his last illness, he came himself from time to time, 
to see that the instruction was regularly and steadily given. 
He also continued to give Bibles and Prayer-books to the 
pupils and teachers in training, as he had done during his 
connexion with the Board. 

His views with regard to the system can best be given 



.Et. 66] CONDOLENCE WITH BR. HINDS. 283 

in his own words, at p. 166 of the Eeport already alluded 
to. He adds, ' I approve of the system as much as ever, 
and am as ready to carry it on, but I feel that I should 
be deserting it in the most disingenuous and the most 
mischievous way possible, were I to pretend to be carrying 
it on when in reality subverting it.' l 

Both the Lord Justice of Appeal (the Eight Hon. F. 
Blackburne) and Baron Greene, who retired from the 
Board with the Archbishop, entertained and expressed the 
same view. The former, in his evidence before the Lords' 
Committee in 1856, says, '1 consider the expunging of 
the books from the list as a breach of faith,' and he gives 
this as the reason for his resigning. 

The Government subsequently caused the Board to 
draw up and insert among their fundamental rules the 
following one : ( The Commissioners will not withdraw or 
essentially alter any book that has been or shall be here- 
after unanimously published or sanctioned by them with- 
out a previous communication with the Lord Lieutenant.' 

In the midst of these turmoils, he found time to write 
to his old friend Bishop Hinds, on hearing of a domestic 
bereavement. 

'Dublin: Feb. 1, 1853. 

'My dear Hinds, — After what you had said in a former 
letter, I could not feel surprised or even sorry to hear of 
your good mother's departure. As for the sufferings 
previously undergone, it is hard to check the imagination 
so as to keep within the bounds of reason ; but I always 
endeavour to recollect in such cases that what is past and 

1 It may be well to notice here, tbat the story which has recently been 
brought forward, of the Archbishop's having manifested his displeasure 
against the Resident Commissioner, the Right Hon. Alex. Macdonnell, by 
deliberately omitting his name and title in addressing his letters, and 

directing to Macdonnell, Esq. , is entirely unfounded. The truth is, 

that the concentrative habit of mind which distinguished him led to con- 
tinual forgetfulness of etiquette and petty forms ; and the instance of care- 
lessness alluded to might have taken place, and often did, with his most 
intimate friends. No one who really knew him could for a moment suppose 
him capable of such a mean piece of spite. 



284 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [15.53 

over, for ever, is no legitimate source of grief. The only 
tiling which reason cannot get ;>ver in such a case — the 
suffering of the good — is only one r. ;>rrion of the one great 
difficulty, the existence of evil: and ~hen the suffering is 
such as to exhibit an edifying example of patient faith. 
one perceives, which is not always the case, one good 
brought out of eviL 

•' Far more afflicting to all parties, except the patient 
herself — and sometimes to her or him also — is the piteous 
spectacle of decaying intellect, gradually reaching the 
point of complete dotage, and presenting for perhaps years 
an object of unmixed pain to those around. 

; I congratulate you and your 1 sisters on having been 
spared everything of this kind. Pray God my family may 
be spared it too 1 ' 

Again we find him urging Airs. Hill to continue her 

anti-slavery labours. 

f Fel . i:. '_:" 

• Aiy dear Airs. Hill. — You must get :>n now with youi 
slavery article, or it will be thrown :»ut t<: make : 
sorne of the trashy theology and metaphysics which Air. 
Fraser is dosed with. > :»m i :ff his :-c ntri tutors are eccen- 
trie geniuses — all but the renins, and they apprc 
use their own language) "to the verge of uninteliigibility." 
There is one who writes about ■'•' sevensomeness." in an 
article on the Sabbath, which he cab- Sabaoth ! But 
there is in the last numl er a capital article on France. 

•Your article should be chiefly occupied — 1. In doul 
about the plan of redeeming slave.: and -..-nding them to 
Siberia, which I suspect is a plan fur getting rid dike the 
crypttia of the Spartans i of the most dangerous to the 
slave system. 2. On the contrast between a poor hard- 
worked labourer in Eur oe. :.ne a slave. The sense 
wrong is a great aggr .vati-n of any suffering to one who 
has the feeling of a man. It is unplesant in going thr<: i 
a wood to Lave boughs bang against one's face, and drops 
from che trees wet one: but w : feels this as he would a 
man's spitting in his face, and slapping him at pleasure ? 



J£t. 66] LETTER TO MRS. HILL. 285 

True, many a slave has lost the feelings of a man ; so 
much the worse ! 

"' Wretch whom no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance ! 
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, 
Spiritless outcast ! " l 

3. Suggest the greater profitableness of free labour, 
when fairly tried. 4. Bishop Hinds's suggestion should 
be noticed, and the pros and cons briefly stated. 5. Some- 
thing about Abbeokuta and Sierra Leone, and the efforts 
now being made to introduce agricultural industry into 
Africa. Better for all parties that cotton and sugar should 
be grown there (wmich succeed perfectly) and thence 
imported, than to carry away the negroes to cultivate them 
1,000 miles off. 

' I could write the article myself; and I could also do 
this, and I could do that, and I could do the other ; but 
that therefore I could do all the things that I am pressed 
to do, is a fallacy ; and if I were to wait till my advisers 
were all agreed which task should have the preference, I 
should do nothing at all. 

' I must enquire about that Jewish version of the Old 
Testament. I should like to know what they make of 
those points touched on in the " Tractatus Tres ; " 2 and, 
by-the-bye, I should like to know what you think of the 
theories of those Tractatus. The Latin is far from ele- 
gant, but not very hard to make out. 

c Those lines on Webster you might insert in your article, 
if they have not been published. I think you will give as 
" general satisfaction " as my would-be hangman — i. e. to 
all except the hanged.' 

In April this year the Archbishop was staying with his 
daughter and son-in-law in Cambridgeshire. The letter 
he writes from thence to Mrs. Arnold gives a slight but 
characteristic touch of that delight in his grandchildren 
which was one of the solaces of his declining years. 

1 See Canning's ' Knife G-rinder.' 

2 A little tract published in Latin on the Continent, by the Archbishop. 



286 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

1 Saintfoins, Little Shelford, Cambridge : 
'April 6, 1853. 

c My dear Mrs. Arnold, — In case your folks should be as 
dilatory as usual, I send you a " Caution/' which you can 
dispose of if you hav 7 e another copy. 

* You should enquire for the new edition of Mr. Cookes- 
ley's letter to me, and my answer. 1 It is in the press, and 
is much enlarged. 

c I am enacting the part of a camel, and sundry other 
beasts of burden, to carry my grand-daughter on my back. 

c I trust you have come in for your share of this fine 
growing weather.' 

He writes as follows to Miss Gurney, of North Eepps — 
with whom his daughter was at that time staying — on the 
Jewish Emancipation Bill of this year : — 

'London: May 7, 1853. 

'My dear Miss Gurney, — Many thanks for the seeds, 
which I have sent to Dublin ; and much more, for your 
kindness to my Jane. How much rather would I have 
been of your party, puzzling out etymologies, than amidst 
all the turmoil of London ! 

' My speech was very meagrely reported, as mine usually 
are ; but, though my views differ much from those of most 
of the supporters of the bill, they do not differ at all from 
those I published (in a speech on the same subject) about 
twenty years ago, and again in my Charge of the year 
1851. So that if you wish to see them fully set forth, you 
may look at those. 

' The supporters of the bill were, many of them, as 
lukewarm as its opponents were zealous, or we should 
have had a much better minority. But I plainly told 

Lord A that, I hoped they would next time bring in 

a better bill, taking the bull by the horns at once, and 
sweeping off all religious disabilities. One might then 
say, consistently, that this is not from indifference to 

1 On Miss Sellon and the ' Sisterhood,' at Plymouth. 



^Et. 66] OX JEWISH EMANCIPATION BILL. 287 

Christianity, but from a persuasion that all attempts to 
monopolise by law civil privileges for Christians, or for 
Christians of any particular communion, are contrary to 
the spirit of the Gospel, and tend to make Christ's a 
kingdom of this world. As it is, we are in a most absurdly 
false position, in many ways: .1. A Jew is admitted to the 
elective franchise. 2. Since to let a Jew take his seat 
when elected, would, it seems, unchristianise the legis- 
lature ; to admit a Roman Catholic must, "by the same 
rule, unprotestantise the legislature ; and to admit a 
Dissenter, must unchurch it; and so on. 3. Since to re- 
move the existing declaration would, it seems, proclaim 
indifference to Christianity, the retaining of it proclaims 
indifference to all but the name; since there are men (and 
much more numerous than the Jews) who are ready to 
call themselves Christians, and who themselves avow what 
they mean by it, as denying all revelation except the im- 
pressions on each man's own mind, and rejecting the chief 
part of the Grospel-history and Grospel-doctrines. Such are 
the followers of F. Newman and Grreg. 4. We are pro- 
claiming that the English people are so desirous of electing 
Jews, and the House of Commons (four different parlia- 
ments ! ) of allowing them to sit, that it is necessary for 
the House of Lords to throw out this bill, in order to show 
that we are a Christian nation ! 

'And yet, after all. this honour to Christianity (!) is 
bestowed only by a side wind, and accidentally ; for, the 
declaration was never designed as a religious test, but as a 
declaration of loyalty; but it so happened that the word- 
ing of it proved an obstacle to Jews taking their seats. 

6 Well, therefore, did Lord say that logical con- 
clusions and reasoning must be laid aside by the oppo- 
nents ! If they would be consistent, they should let no 
person have a vote for a member, or be eligible without 
declaring himself a Christian. As the law now stands, it 
is a mass of absurdity.' l 

1 *The debate to which allusion is here made took place on April 29. On 
this occasion the Archbishop spoke out, on the general subject of tests, with 
even more than his usual fearlessness. He was dissatisfied with the present 



288 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

The Archbishop was now returned to Dublin ; and we 
find him writing to his old friend, Dr. Daubeny, of Oxford, 
on one of the subjects which formed a pleasing relaxation 
to his mind from more pressing cares. His love of natural 
history and botany never failed ; and the College Botanical 
Gardens in Dublin bear witness to his many and varied 
experiments, and the interest he took in collecting plants 
from all parts. His correspondents in various quarters of 
the globe, knowing his tastes, frequently sent him seeds 
or cuttings, .which he always took to the College Gardens 
that they might have the benefit of the careful superin- 
tendence of Mr. Baine, to whose admirable management 
and scientific knowledge he always bore ready testimony ; 
and many of his pleasantest hours were spent in watching 
the effects of these experiments. 

' Palace, Dublin : June 11, 1853. 

' Dear Dr. Daubeny, — Many thanks for your book, of 
which I have read as yet only the passage relating to 
myself. 

6 There is a case of what may be called acclimatisation, 
which seems very curious. The red-flowering ribes when 
first brought over was remarked as flowering freely but 
never fruiting; after some years it began to bear here and 
there a berry, and every year more and more, and now is 
every year loaded with fruit. The vibes auveam and the 
prickly species have also begun, after several years, to bear 
a few berries. 

' All the plants of the Grarrya in our country bear only 
catkins, though it is said to be a monoecious plant. 

' There are some differences between England and Ire- 
land, which it seems hard to explain from differences of 
climate. The Buddlea flowers freely in England, but the 

bill, not merely on account of what he conceived to be an erroneous title, in 
that it purported to be a bill for the relief of the Jews, instead of for the 
relief of electors ; but because it did not do away altogether with all decla- 
rations required from members of Parliament. 'He did not approve of 
this patchwork legislation — this passing of laws, first for the relief of 
Separatists, then of Quakers, then of Jews.' * 



2Et. 66] LETTER TO DR. DAUBENY. 289 

flowers are almost always abortive. When I lived in 
Suffolk I had one which once produced a perfect seed- 
vessel, and my neighbours came to see it as a great curi- 
osity. In Ireland they are loaded with seed-vessels every 
year. How is this to be accounted for ? 

< When I lived in Suffolk I had a laburnum tree, one 
of whose branches, about as thick as a finger, swelled out 
towards the extremity nearly to the thickness of one's wrist, 
and from this bulging part pushed out a dozen or more 
luxuriant shoots. I cut off the branch and sent it to a 
horticultural society in London, who considered it a great 
curiosity. In Ireland nearly half the laburnums we see 
put forth such branches. 

' Yours truly, 

6 En, Dublin. 

'June 12. 

<PS. — It was in the Sandwich Islands that taro was 
cultivated, not in New Zealand, where they had only the 
sweet potato. 

6 The inspissated juice .of the cassava is called cassaripe, 
not cassarine. I doubt whether the poisonous juice is 
ever used by the Indians to poison their arrows, though 
they do use for that purpose some vegetable poisons. It 
is a curious circumstance worth noticing that there is a 
variety of the cassava, not a distinct species, which is not 
at all poisonous ; it is eaten boiled or roasted, like a 
potato. 

' I believe you will find that the tripe de roche is not a 
seaweed but a lichen. 5 

Again he writes to Miss Crabtree : — 

'Dublin: August 23, 1853. 

6 1 send you the last published of the " Hopeful " Tracts, 1 
which have been found very useful here. The great diffi- 
culty in Irish questions is, that they usually seem at the 
first glance so easy, that a man of intelligence who has 

1 A series of tracts, published in Dublin, under the Archbishop's sanction. 

U 



290 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

spent two or three months in Ireland, or, like , two 

or three weeks, is apt to fancy that he understands the 
country, and sees how it should be governed ; but if he 
has patience and enquires further, with great diligence 
and great candour, he begins to find that he understands 
far less than he fancied he did, and, on still further en- 
quiry, he finds that further yet is needful, like Simonides 
in the well-known story, who asked first for a day to an- 
swer a question, and then two days, and then four. If 

Mr. ever should come to know half a quarter as 

much of Ireland as I do, he would burn his pamphlet. 

6 Because Ireland is poor and half-civilised and full of 
ignorance and error, it is generally thought that a very 
little knowledge and study are sufficient to govern it ! I 
am reminded of the young medical student who thought 
he had learnt enough of medicine to cure a very little 
child ! ' 

The letter which follows, to Mrs. Hill, unlocks a recess 
of his inner life, and shows the reality of the struggles he 
was called on to undergo ; not only against outward diffi- 
culties, but inward hindrances. 

'Sept. 29, 1853. 

' My dear Mrs. Hill, — I sent you, yesterday, a copy of 
the vol. of " Cautions." The principal good that we ex- 
pected to do (and that was our object) was among those 
who would only partially approve. For what people most 
readily and most cordially approve, is the echo of their 
own sentiments : and they admire one who, perhaps, ex- 
presses these better than they could. But then this leaves 
them much where they were, only, perhaps, better pleased 
with themselves. If there could be a book (on moral or 
religious subjects) which every one thought very convin- 
cing, this would be a sign that it had convinced nobody. 
But when a good many people read what they approve in 
part, about five per cent, may, perhaps, be brought in time 
to reconsider their opinions and practice in reference to 
the parts they did not like ; and in time some of them may 



Mr. 66} LETTER TO MRS. HILL. 291 

come to alter their views a little. But this, one is not 
likely to hear much of. The " cheers " come from those 
who were already convinced. 

6 There are thoughts that I have long been accustomed 
habitually to bring before my mind, and to suggest to 
myself, continually, that it is better to have a chance of 
doing even a very little good, which, perhaps, may not 
even take place in my lifetime, and which I am not very 
likely to hear of if it does; and to incur ever so much 
censure from various parties, than to obtain the applause 
of millions, by flattering their inclinations. We were — 
and are — convinced that we might have gained a much 
larger amount of popularity, and have escaped nearly one 
half of the disapprobation we have encountered, if we had 
pursued a different course. But even if this course had 
been in itself a better than the one we did take, it would 
not have been right for its, if at variance with our con- 
victions. 

' All this, most would admit in words, but in practice 
there are many temptations to depart from the rule, and 
these temptations are different to different persons. Per- 
haps you have heard that, according to the Hindoo law, 
infidelity in a w T ife is severely denounced, except only in 
case of her being offered the present of an Elephant. That 
is considered a douceur too magnificent for any woman to 
be expected to refuse. Now in Europe, though an actual 
elephant is not the very thing that offers the strongest 
temptation, there is, in most people's conscience, some- 
thing analogous to it ; and different things are elephants 
to different characters. 

' To myself, the " scandalon " most to be guarded against 
— the right hand and right eye, that offended, and was to 
be cut off — was one, which few people who have not known 
me as a child, would, I believe, conjecture. It was not 
avarice or ambition. If I could have had an Archbishopric 
for asking it of a minister, I would not have asked, though 
the alternative had been to break stones on the road ; nor 
would such a sacrifice have cost me much of a struggle. 
But my danger was from the dread of censure. Few would 

u2 



292 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

conjecture this, from seeing how I have braved it all my 
life, and how I have perpetually been in hot water, when, 
in truth, I had a natural aversion to it. But so it was. 
Approbation I had, indeed, a natural liking for ; but so 
immensely short of my dislike of its opposite, that I would 
not have purchased (by my own choice) a pound of honey 
at the cost of chewing one drachm of aloes. 

* So I set myself resolutely to act as if I cared nothing 
for either the sweet or the bitter, and in time I got 
hardened. And this will always be the case, more or less, 
through Grod's help, if we will but persevere, and persevere 
from a right motive. One gets hardened, as the Canadians 
do to walking in snow-shoes [raquets] : at first a man is 
almost crippled with the ' mal raquet,' the pain and swell- 
ing of the feet, but the prescription is, to go on walking in 
them, as if you felt nothing at all, and in a few days you 
feel nothing. 

' There was a very dear and valued and worthy friend of 
mine, who was excessively sensitive, though I believe not 
more so than, originally, I was, and who exerted his elo- 
quence aud ingenuity in descanting on the propriety of 
not being wholly indifferent to the opinions formed of one 
— the impossibility of eradicating the regard for appro- 
bation — and the folly of attempting it, or pretending to it, 
&c. I used to reply, that, though all this was very true, I 
considered my care and pains better bestowed in keeping 
under this feeling than in vindicating it. I treat it, I said, 
like the grass on a lawn, which you wish to keep in good 
order ; you neither attempt, nor wish to destroy the grass ; 
but you mow it down from time to time, as close as you 
possibly can, well trusting that there will be quite enough 
left, and that it will be sure to grow again. 

6 This seems to be all about myself, but there is some 
general use in warning all people to be on the look-out, 
each for his own Elephant.' 

Mrs. Hill, in her answer to this letter, objected that a 
total want of deference or concern for the opinion of wise 
and trustworthy friends, is an extreme to which many are 



.Et. 66] LETTER TO MRS. HILL. 293 

liable, and would be an equally trustful one with the 
opposite. The Archbishop's answer is as follows : — 

'October 6, 1853. 

' My dear Mrs. Hill, — I rather suspect that you are con- 
founding together two things in themselves quite different, 
though in practice very difficult to be distinguished : — love 
of approbation^ and deference for the judgment of the (sup- 
posed) wise and good, &c. The latter may be felt towards 
those whom we never can meet with ; — who perhaps were 
dead ages before we were loom, and survive only in their 
writings. It may be misplaced or excessive ; but it is quite 
different from the desire of their applause or sympathy or 
dread of their displeasure or contempt. A man's desire 
to find himself in agreement with Aristotle, or Bacon, or 
Locke, or Paley, &c, whether reasonable or unreasonable, 
can have nothing to do with their approbation of him. 
But when you are glad to concur with some living friends 
whom you think highly of, and dread to differ from them, 
it is very difficult to decide how far this feeling is the 
presumption formed by your judgment in favour of the 
correctness of their views (see " Ehetoric — Presumption "), 
and how far it is the desire of their approbation and 
sympathy, and dread of the reverse. 

' It is of this latter exclusively that I was speaking : you, 
I think, in the instances you adduce or allude to, were 
thinking of the other. A man who is — like one of those 
you mention — excessive in his dread of excessive defer- 
ence, will be very apt to fall into the opposite extreme, of 
courting paradox and striving after originality. 

6 But I was thinking entirely of a different matter, the 
excessive care concerning what is said or thought of 
myself. 

6 Elizabeth Smith (whose vol. of " Eemains " I have un- 
happily lost; she was an admirable person) says that if 
she were to hold up a finger on purpose to gain the ap- 
plause of the whole world, she would be unjustifiable. If, 
said she, I obtain the approbation of the wise and good 
by doing what is right, simply because it is right, I am 



LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

gratified : but I must never make this gratification, either 

wholly or partly, my object. 

• Yet she had. and avowed, much deference for the judg- 
ment of others, and was reluctant to differ from those who 
^he thought likely to know better than herself. It was not 
this deference, but the desire of personal approbation, that 
she felt bound so severely to check. 

•' One difficulty in acting on this principle is. that it often 
is even a duty to seek the good opinion of others, not as 
an ultimate object and for its own sake, but for the sake 
of influencing them for their own benefit and that of others. 
•• Let your light so shine .... Glorify your Father in 
Heaven." 

•' But we are to watch and analyse the motives of even 
actions which we are sure are in themselves right. 

* And this is a bind of vigilance which human nature is 
always struggling to escape. One class of men are satisfied 
so long as they do what is justifiable, i.e. what may be 
done from a good motive and what when ; : ~:_^ — aid be 
right : and which therefore may be satisfactorily defended. 
Another class-— the ascetic — are for cutting off everytl 
that may be a snare. They have heard of the tftil- 
ness of riches." and so they - — verty. which is less 
trouble than watching your motives in gaining and spend- 
ing money. And so of the rest. But if you would cut 
all temptations, you must cut off your head at once. 

• Yours truly. 

* Br. Dublin.' 

The persecutions inflicted in the poor-houses on many 
converts to Protestantism, forced from poverty to betake 
themselves to this only place of shelter, had been brought 
before the Archbishop's attention specially at this time. 
At a somewhat later period his son-in-law 5 Mr. Wale, m 
very minute enquiries into this subject, visited several 
places where these abuses were carried on. and obtained 
much important information. But such sufferin, - 
easier to ascertain than to remedy. 



^Et. 66] POOR-HOUSE PERSECUTION. 2\)5 

It was on this subject that the following letter was 
written to Mr. Senior : — 

1 October 24, 1963. 
( My dear Senior, — I send you a paper (which pray ac- 
knowledge) which has an account of poor-house perse- 
cution. I had always foreseen and foretold, that besides 
other evils of the Poor Law in Ireland, there would be 
that of incessant squabbles, on a fresh battle-field between 
Protestants and Eoman Catholics. But, of late, this has 
increased tenfold ; because many of the Protestants are 
converts ; and the object of the Roman Catholic priests in 
each locality, is to keep all converts from being employed, 
so as to force thern into the workhouse ; and then, when 
they are there, to have them persecuted without hope of 
redress. For, most of the officers in the generality of the 
workhouses, and a vast majority of the inmates being 
Roman Catholics, it is hardly ever that the most notorious 
outrages can be legally established by testimony. I doubt 
whether even in Tuscany greater cruelties are practised 
than in several of our workhouses. For, what I send you 
now, is I believe only one case out of very many. As for 
the man who was only imprisoned for a day, and forced 
to be bound over to keep the peace, for handing a paper 
to another, it is true, this was far short, in point of se- 
verity, of the Tuscan proceedings. But I wonder you 
should overlook, as you seem to do, the important cir- 
cumstance that the one was wholly illegal ; and that when 
once men in office are allowed to set at nought law, no 
one can tell what may come next. The other was accord- 
ing to law, though a most absurd and cruel law ; but 
still, when law is adhered to, a man can know what he 
may and may not do. The insolent and overbearing pro- 
ceedings of Roman Catholics, and the disgust and dread 
felt by Protestants, increase daily. The sanction afforded 
by Government means to allow Roman Catholic "ascen- 
dency" to the same extent as Protestant "ascendency" 
formerly prevailed. 

' Yours ever, 

< R. w; 



296 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

Mrs. Arnold had asked the Archbishop's opinion of a 
recently published work which had excited much atten- 
tion. 

'Dublin: November 25, 1853. 

'My dear Mrs. A., — I can give you no opinion as yet of 
Professor Maurice's book. I am now reading it by proxy 
(which is what I often do), having put it into the hands of 
an intelligent critic. What I have read of his, gives me 
the impression of being much clearer and more satisfactory 
in each separate passage, than as a whole. It reminds me 
(as the works of several other writers do) of a Chinese 
painting, in which each single object is drawn with great 
accuracy, but the whole landscape, for want of perspective, 
is what no one can make head or tail of. Thus I have 
sometimes read a treatise in which I have understood, and 
assented to, almost every sentence ; and when I have come 
to the end, and ask myself what is the author's general 
drift, it has generally appeared that he never had anj. 

6 But I lately saw in some periodical an extract from his 
work, and one from No. 29 of the " Cautions " (one of the 
finest compositions by-the-bye, in our language), about a 
u luminous haze " which the writer thought must have 
had especial reference to Mr. Maurice ; though in fact 
Fitzgerald had not, I believe, any one particular writer in 
his mind. 

' I forget whether I told you that Governor Grey has 
sent me some copies of a translation into Maori of the 
" Lessons on Money-matters," which he says has proved 
highly acceptable to the natives. He is about to publish 
a translation of the " Lessons on Religious Worship." I 
have sent him some more books, and among others 

's " Lessons on Paul's Epistles." So perhaps they 

may appear in Maori. 

6 I sent him, along with the books, a present of some 
hips and haws and holly-berries! The weeds of one 
country are precious in another.' 



.Et. 66} LETTER TO DR. DAUBENY. 297 

To Dr. Daubeny. 

'Dublin: December 1, 1853. 

6 Dear Professor, — I thank you for the pamphlet, with 
the general views of which I am disposed to agree ; though 
I am hardly a fair judge, not having read the " Quarterly." 
You might I believe have brought in this University as a 
witness ; for there are men among its Fellows who, I 
believe, are allowed to stand very high in physical science, 
particularly (but not solely) Professor Lloyd. 

' But I wonder you should allude to Homoeopathy as a 
thing to be pooh-poohed out of court, as not deserving 
even to be attended to. Be it truth or error, good or evil, 
it has made, and is making, far too great a progress to be 
thought lightly of. For, as our old friend Aristotle says, 
kclL jap ra aya8a teal ra tcaxa, at;ia olofjLtOa airovhrjs slvat. 

'You cannot possibly think it more indefensible, than I 
do the peculiar tenets and pretensions of the Church of 
Rome ; which yet I should never think of treating as if they 
could never gain any considerable influence, or be worth 
contending against. 

' Paradoxical, certainly, is a great deal of the homoeo- 
pathic doctrine ; but this, which is a strong presumption 
against anything in the outset, becomes a presumption 
the other way when there is a great and steady, and long- 
lasting advance. For, as our friend Aristotle again re- 
marks, what men believe must be either probable, or else 
true; and therefore the great improbability of anything 
which gains and retains great and increasing belief, is, to 
a certain extent, a presumption, that something so strange 
must have strong evidence in its favour^ or else no one 
would have listened to it. 

' Now, in this case, when I first came here, there was 
not, as far as I knew, a single homoeopathic practitioner 
in all Ireland ; at present there are four or five in Dublin 
alone, in very considerable practice ; besides several in 
other cities. I believe there are now more in London 
alone than there were twelve or fourteen years ago in the 
whole British Empire. And from what I saw on the Con- 



298 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853 

tinent, I am inclined to think that it is there spreading 
still more. And when I enquire into the causes of this, I 
am referred to the statistics of several Foreign Hospitals. 
and to the returns of Homoeopathic and Allopathic practice 
in Ireland during some frightful visitations of fever, of 
dysentery, and of cholera ; all which returns, if falsified, 
would, one might expect,, have been reported and exposed 
long since. 

; Xow such being the evidence adduced, and such the 
results produced by that evidence, I cannot think that it 
is to be overthrown by a slight and contemptuous touch. 
You cannot disperse the Turkish and Eussian armies and 
send them quietly home, like a swarm of bees : " pulveris 
exigui jactu.' 5 

' Yours very trulv, 

'Ed. Dublin.' 

•'December 14. 1853. 

6 My dear S. — I am reading the third volume (which is 
quite independent) of Miss Bremer's (the novelist) w Homes 
in the New World," which I think would amuse you. 
Negro life, free and enslaved, in the United States and 
in Cuba, compared, is one of the most interesting points. 

' By-the-bye, Mr. Thackeray was saying, at a party 
where I met him, that the cases of ill-usage are only 
here and there one out of many thousands : and that Mrs. 
Stowe's picture is as if one should represent the English 
as humpbacked, or a club-foot uation. Wonderful people 
are the Americans ! In all other regions it is thought at 
least as likely as not that a man entrusted with absolute 
power will abuse it. We jealously guard against this 
danger, and so do the Americans. But of the many hun- 
dred thousands of their people, taken indiscriminately. 
who are nearly all so humane and just, why do they not 
choose one to be their absolute monarch? I think the 
only excuse for Mr. T. would have been the supposition 
that he was so very favourable in his judgments of human 
character as to reckon men much better than they are. 
But in his works he gives just the opposite picture. 



^Et. 66] REGISTRATION OF NUNNERIES. 299 

All his clever characters, and a majority of his weak 
ones, are utterly selfish and base ; and none but a few 
simpletons have any moral good about them. I cannot, 
therefore, but conclude that he knew better about slavery. 

' I send you a corrected copy of the verses. If you will 
get some one to correct yours by it, that will be an 
acceptable present to some one. 

6 Just after I wrote last, I saw an account of one of the 
Scripture readers having been (for no other offence) 
assaulted, three ribs broken, a tooth knocked out, &c, and 
the assailant being brought before a magistrate was sen- 
tenced to pay a fine of no less than five shillings ! If the 
Government go on thus, what shall we come to ? 

' Yours ever, 

<K. W.' 

A petition for the regulation and inspection of nunneries 
brought forward by Lord Shaftesbury in May this year, 
led to debates in which the Archbishop took a prominent 
part, and expressed his hearty concurrence in the effort. 

A few words of explanation may be useful here, to re- 
move misapprehension. He did, in common with most 
enlightened Protestants, strongly disapprove of the con- 
ventual system, and believe it to be totally unsanctioned 
by the spirit of the New Testament. And no doubt his 
feelings on this subject influenced him in advocating the 
measure in question. But he maintained the broader 
principle that every public institution, whether school, 
hospital, asylum, or other establishment, ought to be open 
to public inspection, and that in no other w r ay can the abuse 
of powder be guarded against and the subjects of a free 
country protected from tyranny. Those, he alleged, who 
were conscious of no abuses being permitted in their 
establishments would surely be willing and ready to allow 
of an inspection which could only redound to their credit ; 
and if any shrank from such an inspection, this was in 
itself a presumption that the conductors of such institu- 
tions felt that their work could not bear the light of day. 
He held that, in the case of any public institution being 



300 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1853-4 

completely secluded from all outward observation, it is 
manifestly impossible to guard against the danger of 
persons being detained against their will or otherwise con- 
strained ; that if the advocates of convents assure us that 
no such abuses take place, they should remember that we 
cannot be expected to take their bare word for it. and that 
the only proof they can give of being wholly free from 
this reproach is to be ready to invite inspection. 

A Koman Catholic gentleman who was on friendly term- 
with the Archbishop requested his perusal of a letter from 
a female relation of his who had taken the veil, and who 
wrote to her friends in terms expressive of the most perfect 
and exalted happiness as a nun. The Archbishop, on 
reading the letter, asked whether, if this lady was indeed 
enjoying a life so blessed, she would not rejoice that 
others should see and know it, and have an opportunity of 
personal observation of the happiness of convent life ? 

If the system, he thought, be indeed so perfect, let all 
men see and judge of it; but as long as these establish- 
ments are kept cautiously veiled from the public eye. 
those who conduct them have no right to complain if sus- 
picions are entertained that what is concealed is something 
which open examination would hold up to blame. 

It was with this view that the Archbishop lent himself, 
heart and hand, to the efforts made to procure a general 
inspection, not of convents only, but of all public institu- 
tions. 1 

1 The delate to which allusion is here made took place in the House of 
on 3Iav 9. 



JEt. 67] LETTER TO MR. SENIOR. 3D] 



CHAPTER XII. 

1854—1855. 

Letters to Mr. Senior on Thackeray's Works, &e. — Publishes the 'Remains' 
of Bishop Copleston— Letters to Mrs. Arnold — Letter to Mrs. Hill — 
Letter to C. Wale, Esq. — Letters to Mrs. Hill — Letters to Mr. Senior on 
his ' Sorrento ' Journal — Letter to Mrs. Hill — Letter to Mr. Senior on his 
Review of ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' — Extract from a letter on ' Slavery ' — 
Publishes the 'Lessons on Morals' — Letter to Mrs. Hill — Letter to 
Mr. Senior — Publishes his edition of ' Bacon's Essays with Annotations ' 
— Letters to Mrs. Hill — His illness — Attacked by Paralysis. 

Of the year 1854 we have few events to record directly 
connected with the Archbishop's public or private life. 
His correspondence will show the subjects principally 
occupying his mind. He entered with unflagging earnest- 
ness and lively interest into all that was going on in litera- 
ture or politics, and continued to write new works and 
revise new editions of former ones, and find time for ex- 
tensive correspondence, without relaxing in his incessant 
attention to the special work of his diocese. 

The first letter before us in this year contains a criti- 
cism on his friend Mr. Senior's Eeview of Thackeray's 
Works, now published in a volume under the title of 
' Essays on Fiction.' 

'January 13, 1854. 

6 My dear Senior, — I think some censure should have 
been passed on Thackeray's sneer (cited at p. 209) against 
piety and charity. He might have been asked whether 
he knew many instances (or any) of a person utterly desti- 
tute of all principle, and thoroughly selfish, being "the 
fast friend " of the destitute poor. Such will, on some 
grand occasion, make a handsome donation, and join when 



302 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1854 

m 

solicited in a bazaar ; but a life habitually devoted to such 
works is not consistent with such a character ; at least, I 
never knew an instance. And he implies that it is quite 
common and natural. The truth seems to be that he 
has about as good a notion of moral qualities as the 
heraldic painter had of a lion, who when he saw a real 
one was convinced it was a trick put upon him ; he had 
been painting lions, he said, all his life, and he knew that 
was not one. 

' I suppose Ministers will escape having much attention 
called to the Education Board, by the Turks ; as one may 
be freed from the pain of a sore finger by the amputation 
of a hand, And perhaps again the Reform Bill will suffice 
to smother the Turkish question.' 

' January 24, 1854. 

' My dear Senior, — I send you by to-day's post the MS. 
of the Lessons, 1 which I will beg you to acknowledge. Pray 
make any remarks on a separate paper, that the MS. may 
be fit to go to the press. 

' I hope you will not have been expecting, as some have, 
a much more extensive and more profound work than I 
designed ; either ( 1 ) a Constitutional History of England 
from the time of Alfred, (2) a Treatise on Grovernment 
generally, or (3) a Treatise on Jurisprudence, or (4) a 
Scheme of Parliamentary Eeform, or (5) a Digest of the 
Laws, or all of these combined, any one of which would 
make a very large volume, even though too brief for 
popular use, and too meagre to be satisfactory. The 
common error is to oblige anyone who wants a mutton 
chop to buy and kill a sheep. 

' I wish merely to give children, and those who in know- 
ledge and intelligence are not above thirteen or fourteen, 
a general notion of what our government actually is : not 
of what it was, or may be, or might have been, or ought 
to be. And any notice of anything else is introduced 
very rarely and very briefly, and incidentally, w T hen it 
could hardly be avoided. If you can detect any error in 

1 On the British Constitution. 



Mr. 67] ' REMAINS ' OF BISHOP COPLESTOX. 303 

the execution of this design, or suggest any improvement 
in the execution, your hints will be of course very accept- 
able.' 

He was now engaged on a volume of remains of his 
lamented friend Bishop Copleston. To this he alludes in 
the following letter : — 

'Dublin; January 28, 1854, 

5 My dear Mrs. Arnold, — An old bachelor in iny father's 
neighbourhood used to tell with great exultation a story 
of a pair of canary-birds he had long kept in a cage, and 
which never sang. One morning he was surprised to hear 
the cock in full song; and on looking into the cage, the 

poor hen was seen lying dead. I hope the case of is 

not analogous, and that her versifying powers are not 
limited, like the canary's song, to a state of celibacy. 

6 If you mean to read my publication, you must read 
the Memoir of Bishop Copleston already published (and 
which does really contain interesting matter, especially 
two letters to me, each worth the price of the whole 
volume), since, though I could perhaps have done it better, 
I cannot now ignore the book and write as if it did not 
exist, but must make references to it, which is a disad- 
vantage, but unavoidable. 

'I find it harder work than writing an original book. 
But competent judges think what has been done very 
interesting.' 

Mrs. Hill was at this time preparing an Index to one of 
the Archbishop's Works. 

'February 10, 1854. 

6 My dear Mrs. Hill, — I do not think there is anyone 
I employ who saves me so much trouble. Fitzgerald, 
who is now transcribing for me from Bishop Copleston's 
Commonplace Book, bears witness to the value of your 
excellent Index. 

6 This reminds me that in the new edition of the volume 
of Sermons, which is now in the press, I mean to have an 



304 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [l854 

Index : a thing which adds 10 per cent, to the value of any 
instructive work. If you like to undertake it. write to 
Parker to send you as much as is printed, and each sheet 
as it conies from the press. It is a kind of work you do 
rmkt well, and it will not take you long, for six or seven 
words, on an average, for each sermon, will be quite 
enough. 

•Is it not strange that my Sermons when called Essays 
— though avowedly they were written as Sermons — sell 
five times better than Sermons so called? 

'In all the accounts one reads of myrrh, frankincense,, and 
other "'medicinal ?ums," one alwavs finds different degrees 
of excellence mentioned ; the best being what exudes spon- 
taneously, and not by tapping, or boiling down, &e. And 
so it is with apophthegms. If a man taps himself to draw 
them out. he will be the more likely to sacrifice "truth to 
antithesis." What is said of human approbation, as com- 
pared with intrinsic rectitude — that it is a very good thing 
when it happens to come incidentally, but must never be 
made an object — may be said of forcible or elegant ex- 
pressions, ecc. as compared with truth, The desire of 
truth must reign supreme: and everything else be wel- 
comed only if coming in her train. 

; You may do what yon will witli my lobsters. 1 I wish 
you could boil and eat all the two-legged ones. 

• You will find out, if you reach my age. and probably 
much before, that people of different parties are much 
more alike than at first one is inclined to suspect. 

c Certain persons who agree with you on several impor- 
tant points (whereon others are not only greatly in error 
but also argue most unfairly i. you will be inclined to judge 
of from yourself: and you will be mortified and surprised 
to find them ready to practise equal unfairness when they 
have occasion. You have seen some samples of that in 
what is said by some persons | agreeing with you on the 
whole) in reference to my views of the Sabbath. And you 
will meet with much more of the same kind. 

1 An addition lie had made to an article on ' Food.' written at his sug_ 
tion. and nearly the same as the one in his ■ Commonplace Book." 



2Et. 67] LETTER TO C. WALE, ESQ. 305 

6 Every now and then a case occurs which affords 
(Bacon's) experimentum cruris, whether the truth a man 
actually holds and for which there is good evidence, is 
held by him on evidence, and as truth, or as part of the 
creed of a party.' 

To Charles Wale. 

'February 18, 1854. 

' My dear Charles, — It is the tendency of the Calvinistic 
school to represent man in his natural state as totally 
without moral sense, or as even having a preference for 
evil for its own sake ; not considering that (as is remarked 
in one of the " Cautions ") this destroys not only virtue but 

vice. When was a little girl, she rebuked a great 

tame gull we had, who was bolting a large fish, saying, 
" Don't fill your mouth too full ! " She had been taught 
that for a little girl this was bad manners. 

< It is curious to see Paley, who was far from Calvinistic, 
taking the same view ! 

6 One might ask one of these moral teachers, " Do you 
think it right to obey the Divine will ? " I don't mean 
merely prudent, for it might be prudent to deliver your 
purse to a robber, holding a pistol at your head ; but do 
you think that God has a just claim to your obedience? 
For, if you do, then to say that it is " morally right " to 
obey Him, and yet that all our notions of morality are 
derived from our notions of His will, is just to say that 
what He commanded is — what He has commanded ! ' 

To Mrs. Hill. 

'T. Wells: April 18, 1854. 
' Certainly one may reckon among the obstacles to the 
attainment of truth, presumptuous speculations on what 
is beyond our reach. Instead of ploughing a fertile soil, 
a man breaks his tools in attempting to dig in a granite 
rock. One may read much of such speculations in the 
schoolmen and some who came after them, about the 
celestial hierarchy and such matters, when there was an 

x 



306 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1854 

utter want of practical elucidations of the New Testament 
history. 

•In a sermon of mine which I think you never saw or 
heard, on the sacrifice of Isaac, I have remarked on those 
who profess to explain the atonement of Jesus Christ 3 an 
who at the same time pretend :; pre-eminence in f :" ; 
now. if Abraham had know i fc ' id the issue of the 
whole transaction, there would have been no trial : his 
faith or his obedience. One who on a dark nigh: at sea 
fancies he sees land before him while gazing on a : ; . 
bank, should at least not pretend to have as much „ 
in the pilot as one who believes on the pilot's word that 
the land is near, and does not pretend to see ::. For 
•• Faith is the evidence of things not seen.'' 

•Fitz 1 wants me to follow up the "Lessons >n the 
British Constitution" by "Lessons on Morals:" I 
afraid the task is impossible, at leas: to me. ? 

The Archbishop was anxious to employ Mrs. Hill in 
writing more articles for Reviews; btit her shrinking 

diffidence and distrust of her own powers, made hex often 

w back from the undertakings h : su^ge ted to her. 
i this subject he writes : — 

May _:. 1854. 

•My dear Mrs. Hill. — My friend John Hughes went out 
ne Lay a-trolling for pike, and caught one of 23 lbs. He 
carved and painted a model of it. which he hung up in his 
study as a trophy : and from that time he never w 
a -fishing any more, that he might have it to sav •'•' T 

-: I went out I caught a pike of three-and-twenty 
pounds." 

• Xow. perhaps, something like this is your case. You 
wish to be able to sav, ••' The last article I wrote for a 

iew was eminently successful." If your article h 
been rejected or thought meanly of. I should have urg 
that you ought not to be vexed or disheartened by t 
failure of a first attempt. &c. But as it is. I am qi 

1 A playful name fori Id. 



JEt. 67] LETTER TO MRS. HILL. 307 

at a loss. For if complete success does not satisfy you, 
one can't say what you vjould have. 

' What I said about being charged with legalism was 
not thrown out at random. There are not a few such 
narrow-minded bigots, that anyone who does not treat and 
treat exclusively on the same topics with them, and in the 
very same order, and in the very same words, they set 
down as not knowing the Gospel. 

6 But there are a good many partisans who are like the 
ancient Stoics. Those taught that all faults are equal ; 
since a man whose head is one inch under water is as 
infallibly drowned as if it were ten fathoms.' 

'June 9, 1854. 

' My dear Mrs. Hill, — It is worth your while to look at 
(I would not sentence you to read it through) Coleridge's 
Dissertation prefixed to the " Encyclopedia Metropolitana." 
If you have not access to it, I can show it you when you 
come. I had thought to cut it out and burn it when I 
had the volumes bound, but I resolved to keep it as a 
curious specimen of what trash a very clever man can 
write. 

' Those " fragmentary writers," as Bishop Copleston 
observes, men whose wealth may be said to consist in gold- 
dust — who deal in striking insulated passages of wisdom, 
or wit, and in mysterious hints of what wonderful systems 
they could construct, if they had leisure — are, as he ob- 
serves, greatly overrated. Some are led to form expecta- 
tions from them destined not to be realised till Febru- 
ary 30, and others give them credit for being at least 
unrivalled in their own department. Now, if you should 
prove to the world that such writers can be rivalled by 
selections from one of a far different stamp — that the 
shreds and parings of some complete treatises can furnish 
almost as much gold-dust as those can produce whose 
gold is only dust — you will have accomplished much. 

' The great Montrose, on one occasion, had to engage 
with a very superior force ; and he put nearly all his 
soldiers into the wings, having nothing in his centre but 

x 2 



308 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1854 

a great deal of brushwood, "with a score or two of nien 
popping their heads out of bushes, which kept the enemy 
in check, who took these for the main army. Is not this 
something like the procedure of these " fragmentary 
writers ? n ' 

Mr. Senior had sent the Archbishop a portion of a 
journal he had written during his stay at Sorrento. He 
was in the habit of recording conversations he had held 
with various distinguished persons ; and in this portion 
were notes of several which had taken place between him 
and M. de Tocqueville, on the respective merits of the 
ministers of the Eoinan Catholic and Protestant Churches. 
On these conversations the Archbishop makes the follow- 
ing remarks : — 

'July 24, 1854. 

6 My dear Senior, — It is but very lately that I have had 
leisure to look at a small portion of your Sorrento journal. 
I am greatly surprised at the record of some of your con- 
versations with Tocqueville. He seems to have greatly 
mystified you: for though he probably believed a good 
deal more than was true, he could hardly have believed 
all that he said. And you seem according to the most 
obvious interpretation of your words to have assented to 
much, and also added much, contrary not only to facts, 
but to your own knowledge of facts. 

' I suppose you did not really mean — though most would 
so understand you— that all Protestant ministers are 
worldly and interested men, and that Eoman Catholic 
priests are all disinterested and heavenly minded ; or that 
Eoman Catholics do not consider what they call " heresy " 
as " destructive," but regard it with tender compassion : 
or that hatred for erroneous or supposed erroneous and 
mischievous tenets, which is so apt to degenerate into 
personal animosity, does so degenerate among all Protest- 
ants and no Eoman Catholics ? You are acquainted with 
several Protestant clergymen, though not with a twentieth 
as many as I am, but enough, I should think, to know as 



^Et. 67] LETTER TO MR. SENIOR. M)9 

well as I do that there are good, bad, and indifferent 
among them, as in other professions. But as for what 
relates to the respective Churches, as such, the impression 
anyone would derive from the most obvious sense of the 
language used is just the reverse of the truth. There is a 
little penny tract by Napoleon Eoussel, widely circulated 
in France, and which no one ever did or can answer — 
though the Roman Catholics would of course be very glad 
if they could — called " La Religion de F Argent," exposing 
the established and sanctioned system of traffic which is 
peculiar to the Romish and Greek Churches, a traffic in 
the sale of Masses, Relics Indulgences — in short, vo^i^qvtss 
iropta/jibv sivai rrjv £vae/3eiav. 

' Then as for tender compassion felt by Roman Catholics 
towards heretics, it is shown here by pelting, beating, and 
sometimes murdering them, refusing to employ them, 
refusing to sell to them any article, &c. In some of the 
workhouses, the persecution has been so fierce that ail 
Protestants who would not give up their faith have gone 
out in a body, to take their chance of begging or starving 
outside rather than endure it any longer. And no legal 
redress can be obtained; because those who are eye- 
witnesses of the most violent outrages either will not or 
dare not give evidence. 

' Perhaps you may think all this appertains to the Irish 
as such. I, however, know something of the treatment 
which Protestants receive in Italy and in France. 

' Now, Protestants, it must be admitted, are often violent 
and bitter^ often avaricious or ambitious, &c. 3 and Roman 
Catholics often the reverse. But the difference is this : 
on the one side you have gardens often sadly overrun with 
weeds ; there are nettles in the cabbage plot and groundsel 
among the celery beds, and so on. On the other hand, 
you have a garden laid out in noxious plants ; there are 
beds of nettles and parterres of thistles. A Roman Catholic 
who does not seek to extirpate heretics by force, if fair 
means fail, is transgressing the regular deliberate decrees 
of his Church (look at the first article in the July number 



310 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. [1854 

of the •'• Irish Church Journal." which is very well and 
fairly written ). 

4 1 wonder you should have apparently acquiesced in the 
very shallow defence by Tocqueville of the celibacy of the 
clergy as qualifying them for the Confessional. Could he 
have been ignorant, or could you. that in the Greek Church. 
where there is confession also, the clergy must be married 
men? or would he have supposed that a priest's niece 
would be less likely to be made a confidant than a wife ? 
or would either of you doubt that if the experiment were 
tried, and priests allowed to marry, all decent women 
would choose a married confessor ? 

i As for the real cause of the greater interest in religion 
anions the Protestant laitv, vou mav see it clearlv set forth 
in the ••'Cautions," Xo. 18, p. 3-il. The Rornan Catholic 
priest is to the people what the lawyer is to his client, and 
the physician to the patient ; the Protestant minister is to 
his people what the lawyer and physician are to the legal 
and medical pupil.' 

Mr. Senior in his answer suggested some explanation of 
the remarks he had made, which he had never intended as 
conceding so much to Romanism as they had appeared to 

the Archbishop to do. 

; Dublin: August 1. 1854. 

4 My dear Senior. — I do think some such explanation as 
you allude to might as well be inserted in your journal. 
If you had recorded nothing at all of your own remarks, 
the whole would have appeared merely as "a mirror" 
showing what was said by another. But. as things stand 
now. the impression conveyed is something considerably 
different from what I conceive to be your real meaning. 
I believe that sometimes a partial knowledge of some 
country misleads more than utter ignorance. "Per in- 
certain lunam. sub luce maligna." may. in some respects. 
be worse than pitch-darkness. I have no doubt that a 
large proportion of the educated Roman Catholics on the 
Continent have no hostility to Protestants. But there are 



JEt. 67] LETTER TO MR. SEXIOR. 311 

enough of them who have, or pretend to have, such hos- 
tility, to make them leaders of the vulgar, who are, many 
of them, fierce zealots. Probably, the Roman magistrates 
at Philippi had no hostility of their own to Christianity, 
but they were willing to earn popularity by scourging Paul 
and Silas. 

6 1 have lately been raising contributions for some poor 
French Protestants, to enable them to build a church at 
Agen; and no means were left untried by the authorities, 
leading or rather led by the populace, to prevent them. 

6 The " Cautions " is out of print, and there will be a few 
words added to that note in the new edition. But there 
is one remark which will not be inserted there ; when you 
speak of some differences of interpretation being designed, 
but not all, this seems an arbitrary distinction. If, accord- 
ing to your own illustration, you infer a designed difference 
of construction of a deed from its actual occurrence, this 
must hold good equally whether the differences of con- 
struction be few or many, trifling or important. The 
whole resolves itself into the difficulty of the permission 
of evil. 

6 1 see Lord Monteagle has given notice of motion of a 
series of resolutions amounting to the request which the 
Education Committee would have made if they had agreed 
to make one conformable to the evidence. But I suppose 
it is too late in the session to bring forward his motion. 5 

The following extract from a letter written about this 
time is characteristic : — 

' What you and I think about asking for a Bishoprick 
is not I believe in accordance with the opinions of most 
Ministers. They cannot of course comply with every 
one's request ; but they don't seem to think it makes 
against him. I have often openly said, in presence of 
those whom I knew to have asked, that such a request 
must be understood to mean one of two things : (1) Ap- 
point me as the fittest man, for which you must take my 
word, as my trumpeter is dead; or (2) though I am not 



312 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1854 

the fittest man, yet give me the preference, and I will 
show you the more gratitude.' 

? October 9, 1854. 

'My dear Mrs. Hill, — The paper which I sent to the 
Bishop contains a full report of my speech, 1 but a very 
slight sketch of the Bishop of New Zealand's, which was 
even much more interesting than the one Bishop Wilson 
admired so much in London. Ask him when you next 
meet to describe to you that, and ask him whether this 
does not illustrate the difference between a brilliant speech 
which makes you think much of the orator, and a quiet 
but impressive one which makes you think much of the 
things he is speaking of, 

6 When the moon shines brightly, we are taught to say, 
" how beautiful is this moonlight ; " but in the day time, 
u how beautiful are the trees, the fields, the mountains, 5 ' 
and in short, all the objects that are illuminated ; we never 
speak of the sun that makes them so. The really greatest 
orator shines like the sun, and you never think of his 
eloquence; the second best shines like the moon, and is 
more admired as an orator.' 

The following is a criticism of a Eeview of ' Uncle 
Tom ' which had just appeared : — 

'Dublin: November 23, 1854. 

' My dear Senior, — It is a pity your article should have 
been delayed, as a good part of it is likely to have lost in 
interest. Still there will be much that will remain in- 
teresting; but some things perhaps may be dangerous. 
To set forth the dislike and jealousy of the English among 
a certain portion of the French, and their aversion to the 
war, may tend to increase those evils. I suppose you read 
at the time the article in the "North British Eeview" on 
" Uncle Tom." That contains most of what I have to say 
on the subject. A subsequent article on Slavery, in the same, 
contains a few more of my suggestions. The former has 

1 At a meeting of the S. P. GL Society. 



JEt. 67] LETTER TO MR. SENIOR. 213 

a good many ; and some few, important ones, from Bishop 
Hinds. Shall I try and procure for you the original MS. 
of the article ? It contains one-third or one-fourth more 
than was printed ; some valuable parts being excluded for 
want of room. 

6 When you speak of the work being more popular than 
Homer, Shakespeare, &c., you leave out of account their 
permanence. Some very pleasant wines, for the time, will 
not keep like Hock. 

'But the present popularity is certainly a wonderful 
phenomenon. Xo one cause will account for it. (1.) It 
certainly is a work of great power. The author has shown 
that she can't write other things as well. But I do not 
know that her other productions are more inferior to it 
than the worst of Sir W. Scott's to his best. (2.) It re- 
lates to a very interesting subject. Many of the readers in 
England have friends settled in the United States, and the 
rest can easily fancy themselves living there in the midst 
of slaves, and perhaps themselves slave-owners. (3.) It 
gives a picture which most people believe, and I conceive 
with good reason, to be true. The answers it called forth, 
the testimony of many eminent Americans, and the docu- 
ments published in "the Key" all go to confirm the 
truth. 

' Only t'other day I heard a man repeat the argument 
of the "Times" that self-interest is a sufficient security; 
as in the case of cattle, where, by-the-bye, it is so little a 
security that we have a law against cruelty to them. But 
even the most humane master of cattle treats them in a 
manner which one could not approve towards men, e.g. 
selling most of the calves that a cow bears ; and knocking 
on the head a horse that is past work. I suggested that 
it would be an advantage to slaves if the masters could 
acquire a taste for human flesh. When a negro grows too 
old to be worth keeping for work, instead of being killed 
by inches by starvation and over-work, he would be put up 
to fatten like an ox. Both the above arguments are fully 
met in that article. 

'I am in the press, as usual, though this is a bad time 



314 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1854 

for publishing, except about Turks and Eussians. But I 
must keep up the existing works by fresh editions. I have 
also been delivering, at an Institution in Cork, a lecture 
on the Origin of Civilisation, which the Institution in 
London for which I had designed it are going to print. It 
seems to have excited much interest. 

' Poor Lord St. Germans has lost a son and a nephew in 
this bloody battle. 

' Remember me kindly to Dr. Jeune and to your brother- 
in-law. What a delightful living Tenby would be if it- 
were but of four times the value ! 

6 Yours ever, 

<Rd. Whatbly. 

s PS. I have a hone now which I picked up at Tenby ; 
and never was there a better! The rocks (up the Channel) 
abound in them. I wonder no one has ever thought of 
collecting them as a matter of trade.' 

Extract from a Letter on the subject of Slavery. 

6 I was once in a friend's house (the Coplestons) where 
a lady who was visiting rebuked me for saying something 
against slavery, asking whether I had ever been in the 
West Indies. I said no ; but that I was intimate with 
many West Indians. She said I could not be any judge. 
She had spent six weeks in Jamaica with her friend Mr. 
Smith or Mr. Jones, and she could testify that the slaves 
were well treated and very happy, and far better off than 
the poor of this country. Miss C. Copleston, who had 
much sly humour, observed to her, " Your friend Mr. 
Smith was a remarkably kind-hearted good man, was he 
not?" "Oh, yes! most singularly so." We exchanged 
glances, but left her contented with her supposed proof. 

' It is often overlooked that there is a peculiar difficulty 
in giving such moral lessons to slaves as shall be consistent 
with slave -constitutions. 

'E.g. how would you exhort a slave to abstain from pil- 
fering or fairly running away with all the property he can 



Mt. 67] EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OX SLAVERY. 3L3 

lay hold of? Most would say, Teach him that theft is a 
sin. Granted: but he will deny that it is theft. It is 
enemy's property, and fair spoil. He is not a member of 
the community. It is a hostile one. 

1 Think' st thou we will not sally forth 
To spoil the spoiler as we may, 
And from the robber rend the prey ! 

6 His master has stolen him, or at least is a receiver. 
And lie will ask whether, if you were taken prisoner by 
bandits, and either kept by them or transferred by them 
to others, though you might be deterred by fear in some 
cases from attempting to escape, you would feel any 
scruple of conscience, any doubt of the right, to seize on 
anything of theirs you might need, mount their best 
horses, and ride off ? 

' Such is the slave's case. You cannot prove that he has 
not a fair right to anything (including himself) belonging 
to his master, or to any other member of the community 
which is thus hostile to him. 

6 It is not coveting one's neighbour's goods to sue another 
for damages for false imprisonment. 

' Hence it is that most missionaries, except the Mora- 
vians, 1 have made slaves discontented and rebellious. For 
when men acquire any notion of justice, they apply it 
most readily to others.' 

The year 1855 was also an uneventful one. The Arch- 
bishop paid a short visit to London, but took little part in 
what was going on. He was at this time much engaged 
with the ' Lessons .on Morals,' which followed those on the 
British Constitution. He was always strongly of opinion 
that the moral sense and perceptions of right and wrong 
required as careful cultivation as any of the intellectual 
powers ; and that though Christian principle supplied the 

1 He often remarked, that the argument used commonly by the Moravian 
missionaries, and also by the apostles, to keep slaves from purloining was 
the only one which could be valid with them, i.e. they should abstain, in 
order not to bring reproach on the Christian name. 



316 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [lSo-5 

motive, the perceptions, even in those who are truly ac- 
tuated by such motives, are liable to become blunt or to 
be perverted, if not carefully regulated and directed. 
Conscience, if ill regulated, will not onlv fail to guide us 
right, but positively guide us wrong, as with those spoken 
of in Scripture who were ' given up to a strong delusion.* 
To help his readers fully to understand and profit by the 
teaching of the New Testament, and to educate their moral 
perceptions, was the object of this little book. 

'Dublin: January 2. 1855. 

' My dear 3Irs. Hill, — I hope you inserted in my letter 
to (though I forgot to remind you to do so), a com- 
ment of your own, expressing your concurrence or dissent. 
If not, it must cost you another penny to write to her. as 
she will surely wish for your opinion. Doubtless you are 
right in thinking (as I collect you do) that "so that ye 
cannot do the things that ye would," means " so as to be 
an obstacle to your doing." .... It is a common Greek 
idiom to express the tendency towards a certain result as 
the actual result. "John forbade Jesus to be baptised'* 
is rightly rendered — though a schoolbov would be likely 
to render it literally — " hindered him " (SlskcdXvsv, "was in 
the act of hindering '*). That Paul " compelled the Chris- 
tians to blaspheme" (fjva^fca^sv) should have been "urged 
them/' i.e. "'was attempting to compel them.'* 

6 I don't know whether you ever heard my remark that 
the organ of Conscientiousness is the only one that never 
in its exercise affords any direct gratification. The organ 
of Love of approbation gives much pleasure when we are 
praised, as well as pain when we are blamed or unnoticed : 
the organ of Secretiveness makes those in whom it is strong 
(I speak from my observation of others) feel a delight in 
mystifying. That of Number, as I well remember when 
I had it strong, about sixty years ago, affords great pleasure 
in the mere act of calculating; and so of the rest. But 
Conscientiousness, which gives great paiu to one in whom 
it is strong, if he at all goes against it, affords no direct 
pleasure when complied with. It merely says, You have 



2Et. 68] LETTER TO MRS. HILL. 317 

paid your debt ; you are " an unprofitable servant." And 
when you have triumphed nobly over some strong temp- 
tation, the pleasure — if it can be so called — is just that 
which you feel at having reached the shore from a strong- 
sea, or narrowly escaped slipping down a precipice. It 
is the pleasure of mere safety as contrasted with a shock- 
ing disaster. 

' But, indirectly, Conscientiousness affords pleasure ; 
and this is what leads people to speak of delight in vir- 
tue, &c. 

' It is to a conscientious man the necessary condition of 
all other qualifications. It is what the mosquito net (or 
canopy, kcovcottslov) is in hot climates. It affords no direct 
pleasure, but enables you to enjoy sweet sleep. 

' But a benevolent man is gratified in doing good ; and 
because well-directed benevolence is a virtue, he is apt to 
fancy this is a delight in virtue as such. But it is the 
organ of Benevolence that is gratified. And if he stands 
firm against solicitations and threats in a good cause, it is 
the organ of Firmness that affords the pleasure ; and so 
of the rest. Especially to a pious Christian there is always 
an indirect gratification in doing his duty, through the 
organ of Veneration ; for this, where it is strong, affords 
directly a high degree of gratification. Aristotle remarks 
this, saying that Admiration (to Qavyba^ziv) is in itself 
pleasurable. I think if he had known the Gospel he 
would have been a pious Christian.' 

The Archbishop was anxious to have Mr. Senior's 
opinion on the anti-slavery article alluded to above. 

'January 24, 1855. 

' My dear Senior,— The MS. may be sent to " Mrs. Hill, 
Blackrock, Cork." But allow me to suggest that you should 
get Nassau or some one else to read it straight through to 
you first, in case, when the proof of your article comes to 
you for correction, you should see occasion for any inser- 
tion or modification. It would not take up three quarters 
of an hour, and would be well worth that. For, besides 



318 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP vVHATELY. [j 8,5,5 

that Mrs. Hill is a very able writer, the article abounds 
with suggestions not only from me. but from Hinds, who 
had been himself a slave-owner. 

• And sometimes the addition or alteration of a line, or 
half line, will obviate some misapprehension, or forestall 
some objection, or impart important information. (The 
paper I sent yesterday was with that view. ) And the 
subject is not only of vast importance, but of great diffi- 
culty: and vour opponents are active, watchful, and some 
of them skilful. If you were besieging a town, and had 
erected a formidable battery, it would be a gTeat error to 
leave an unguarded opening by which a shot might dis- 
mount your guns. 

* Perhaps I rnav have an over-allowance of the organ of 
Cautiousness: but it is a fault, if anv. on the right side.- 
You have sometimes in most able article- laid yourself 
open to strong objections, and. in some instances, obliged 
me to write against you.' 

The Archbishop was this year engaged on his edition 
of ; Bacon's Essays with Annotations.' Mrs. Hill was em- 
ployed by him to assist in arranging references. &c. a 

work for which her accurate habits and extensive reading 
peculiarly fitted her. 

' A\;gr:s; 24. 1855. 

' My dear Mrs. Hill. — I particularly wish for yo 
opinion of what I have .-aid in p. 54: and I should like 
Bishop's ! also, if you think he is well enough. The 
man was one in high repute: but what he said on that 
occasion gave me somewhat the impression of humbug. 

"'You will see that I hare referred to various works of 
mv own. and some of others, for extracts, which it should 
be part of your task to make with omissions of such pas- 
sages as are not to the purpose. 

% That and the arrangement and correction of the Xotes 
I am writing, and suggestions for more, and foot-notes 
explanatory of Bacon's obsolete words and phrases, and 

1 The B-V-r c f Cork. Lr. James Wilson. 



JEt. 68] LETTER TO MRS. HILL. 319 

a translation of the Antitheta, will be a considerable job 
for you. 

' Yours very truly, 

' Ed. Dublin. 

' PS. Yours just received. 

' Thanks for the valuable hints. 

6 Pray do not set me forth as seeking to convince any one 
— or as thinking myself — " that Election is not a doctrine 
of Scripture." I never said any such thing. But I do 
think many neglect to ascertain in each case a chosen to 
what?" 

6 Calvin's reasoning, from his own data, does appear to 
me quite a demonstration. And I feel sure that if (ac- 
cording to the parallel case I have adduced) any slave- 
state American were to put forth such " an apparent 
inconsistency," he would be laughed to scorn. 

6 When I so freely tolerate, as I do in every one, differ- 
ences of opinion, I must warn you from time to time that 
if I make any errors, you are in some measure responsible 
for confirming me in them. If you either give no reasons 
at all, or none that appear to me satisfactory for rejecting 
my views, I am disposed to consider my reasons as irre- 
fragable. 

' 1 mention this, because to many a one it would not 
occur that it is at all a compliment to be confirmed in 
one's own opinion by his contrary opinion. 

6 There is no hurry at all about Bacon. But perhaps it 
may be ready in the course of next season. No matter if 
it is not.' 

'August 26, 1855. 

6 My dear Mrs. Hill,— Have you Bishop Hinds' " Cate- 
chist's Manual ? " If not I will send you a copy. It had 
been long out of print, and a new edition by Parker is 
lately out. It is the substance of a portion of his lectures 
at St. Alban's Hall. 

6 In presenting a copy to one of my clergy t'other day, 
I took occasion (it being audience-day) to make a 'dis- 
course on the subject of expounding; and I should like 



320 LIFE OF ABCHBISHOE WHATELY. [1855-6 

your opinion thereon. (I wish you could be concealed 
in a closet on my audience days, to hear and afterwards 
talk over with rne what I say to the assembled clergy. 
For I generally take occasion, from business that arises, 
or some recent occurrence, to enter on some disquisition 
that may profit them; and there are some who come 
almost every Wednesday to pick up matters for a sermon. 
or sometimes for two or three.) 

6 1 remarked that a hortatory discourse, in a style of 
florid declamation, is an easier thing than a good explana- 
tion, and also more likely to be popular, and to gain a man 
the credit of being a fine preacher : but that the other is 
the more lastingly profitable. For after all. the Apostles 
and Evangelists can preach the gospel better than we can. 
Our first, second, and third object therefore should be to 
put the hearers of Scripture as nearly as we can (entirely 
we cannot) in the same position with the illiterate multi- 
tude whom the Apostles addressed, and who were quite 
familiar with many things that are made out (or not made 
out) by diligent study of the learned among us ; e.g. " Let 
him that is on the housetop." &c 3 is quite intelligible to 
one who is acquainted with the oriental mode of build- 
ing, but quite a mystery to one who is not. Paul, again, 
starting from Antioch (in Syria) and shortly after preach- 
ing at Antioch (in Pisidia), is quite bewildering till ex- 
plained. And the common people need to be told what is 
a " lawyer '■ and a " publican/' How did Elijah so readily 
get the water to pour on his altar when the land was 
parched with drought ? easily explained, as he was close 
to the sea, but needing to be explained. 

•And do not, I said, regard any matter as trifling, that 
tends to give men an increased interest in Scripture, or a 
better understanding of it. 

C I used, in my own parish, to give a weekly lecture of 
this kind, first in a school-house and ultimately (as the 
number of hearers increased) in the church. Of course I 
did not fail to bring in practical admonitions when they 
sprung naturally out of the explanations ; but I made the 
clear elucidation of Scripture the main point. 



^Et. 69] ATTACKED BY PARALYSIS. 321 

' That the hearers were interested, appeared from the 
large and increasing attendance ; and that they understood 
what was said, I ascertained by examining many of them. 
I thought this kind of exposition more profitable than im- 
passioned hortatory harangues. 

' Of course a great deal of this kind of explanation to 
the uneducated, is likely to be tiresome to the educated, 
classes who do not need to be told what were " Pharisees 
and Sadducees," or what was the meaning of the name 
" Jesus." Nevertheless, some even of them were interested 
in these lectures, from picking up now and then some- 
thing new to them ; and in other points receiving hints 
how to explain to children and the vulgar.' 

The year 1856 was one of some trial to the Archbishop. 
It began with an attack of inflammation of the tongue. 
But he was now beginning to experience a warning of a 
more serious character, in a symptom of ' creeping pa- 
ralysis ' in the left arm and leg, which was now declaring 
itself. The shaking of the left hand continued to increase, 
and from this time forth never left him except in sleep ; 
and the pain occasioned in the whole arm by this involun- 
tary muscular motion was at times very severe. The diffi- 
culty of steadying the paper on which he wrote affected 
his handwriting ; and that clear, round, bold caligraphy 
now began to show somewhat of the tremulousness of age. 
It was to the last more legible than that of many persons 
in their best days, and exemplified the advantage of the 
strenuous pains he had taken in this often-neglected 
branch. He always said it was c a mark of selfishness ' to 
write an illegible hand. But the alteration which growing 
infirmity made in his writing was painfully felt by him ; 
and from this time he made use as much as possible of an 
amanuensis, latterly even in the ' Commonplace Book.' 
Dictation was never a painful effort to him ; he performed 
it with clearness and accuracy as well as rapidity, and 
would often dictate a short article or memorandum on 
some interesting point while sitting at the breakfast 
table. 



322 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1856-7 

It lias been often affirmed that he refused all medical 
aid in his latter days. That he was a firm and decided 
adherent of homoeopathy, all are aware ; and this treat- 
ment was always adopted by him in illness, though with 
very little real confidence in any medicine as far as he 
himself was concerned. But it having been suggested 
that some of the foreign baths might be beneficial to this 
paralytic affection, he consulted the late celebrated Sir 
Philip Crampton, then surgeon-general, who gave it as 
his decided opinion, that neither mineral waters nor any 
other medical treatment could in any way check the pro- 
gress of the disease, and that all that could be done was to 
keep up the strength by diet and general care. 

His literary activity remained undiminished. He was 
constantly making additions to new editions of his works, 
and composing a fresh series of Easy Lessons, or superin- 
tending literary undertakings of friends or members of his 
own family. 



Ml 70] APPOINTMENT OF HIS CHAPLAIN. 323 



CHAPTER XIII. 

1857—1859. 

Appointment of Dr. Fitzgerald to the See of Cork — Letter to Mr. Duncan — 
Letter to Mr. Senior on opening Places of Public Recreation on Sundays 
— Death of the Rev. Henry Bishop —Letter to Miss Crabtree — Letter to 
Mrs. Hill — Letter to Mr. Senior — Meeting of the British Association at 
Dublin — Interested in Dr. Livingstone's Plans — Accident to the Arch- 
bishop — His great Interest in Missions — Dangerous Illness of his eldest 
Grandchild — Visit of Mr. Senior — Extracts from his Journal — Letter to 
Mr. Senior on ' Book grants ' from the Education Board — Letter to Miss 
Crabtree on the Revival Movement — His family bereavements — Death of 
his youngest Daughter — Death of Mrs. Whately — Letters to Miss Crabtree 
and Dr. Hinds — Breaking up of his family circle — Spends the summer 
with Mr. Senior — Letter to Mrs. Arnold. 

In the beginning of this year (1857) the Archbishop 
had the pleasure of seeing his valued friend and chaplain, 
Dr. Fitzgerald, appointed to the see of Cork in the place 
of Dr. Wilson. 

'Dublin: January 27, 1857. 
'My dear Duncan, — I was very glad to receive from 
you a letter written in as firm a hand as you wrote, when 
I first became acquainted with you, forty-five years ago, 
which is more than could be said of most. You have the 
glory of being the first to bring Fitzgerald into notice ; he 
has from me a print of you to worship as his patron saint. 
Most people give me the credit, or discredit, of having 
obtained the bishopric for him and for Dickinson, by 
making interest with Government; I never said a word 
for either of them or anyone else, and I will beg of you 
to say so to any one who may be under this mistake. 
There is a great advantage that the benevolent have over 
the selfish as they grow old ; the latter, seeking only their 

y2 



324 LIFE OF AECHBTSHOP WHATELY. [1857 

own advantage, cannot escape the painful feeling that any 
advantage they procure for themselves can last but a short 
time, but one who has been always seeking the good of 
others has his interest kept up to the last, because he of 
course wishes that good may befall them after he is gone. 5 

The question of opening places of public recreation on 
Sundays was now under discussion ; and the Archbishop 
wrote the following letter to Mr. Senior on the subject: — 

'February 25, 1857. 

' My dear Senior, — If your Sabbath question comes on 
for discussion, you may as well look at what I have said 
on a part of the subject, in an address to the people of 
Dublin, which is appended to the last two editions of my 
" Thoughts on the Sabbath." There is nothing in it which 
is not, I suppose, familiar to you ; but it may not be to 
all. There is a distinction which should be noticed be- 
tween handicraft- work and shops. A man can certainly 
(if he does not overwork himself) saw more planks in 
seven days than in six. But there would not be more 
goods sold if shops were open seven days. One shop- 
keeper might indeed gain an advantage over his rivals, if 
he alone kept open shop on Sundays ; but if all did it, no 
one would gain. I have often thought that if old clothes- 
men, &c, were allowed to ply only on one day in the 
week, all would be benefited, except indeed the sellers and 
buyers of stolen goods. There would not be fewer old 
coats or hareskins sold per week than now. 

' When I lived in. Suffolk, the farmers all agreed that 
there should be no gleaning allowed till eight o'clock, at 
which time a bell was tolled to give notice. This was a 
benefit to all, when enforced on all ; for the women had 
time to dress their children, and give them their breakfast, 
&c, and there was just as much corn gleaned. But if the 
rule had not been enforced on all, one might have gone 
out at daybreak and forestalled all the rest. 

' Do you know what ministers mean to do about trans- 
portation ? A Mr. Pearson, who takes my view and that 



JEt. 70] DEATH OF HIS BROTHER-IX-LAW. 325 

of Mr. Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, and has exerted 
himself in the cause, has published a pamphlet which is 
worth your looking at.' 

This year was saddened to the Archbishop by the death 
of one of his oldest and most valued friends, his brother- 
in-law, the Rev. Henry Bishop, with whom he had been 
on terms of close and affectionate intimacy for many years, 
and whose high qualities of heart and mind he sincerely 
esteemed. 

The correspondence with this friend was very full and 
frequent; but, as in the case of Dr. Arnold, the letters 
have not been preserved, and no record therefore remains 
of many letters probably containing matter of deep in- 
terest. 

To Miss Crabtree. 

•April 13 ; 1S57. 

' As for myself, I am going down 

hill, though not rapidly ; and I hope to be spared becoming 
a useless burden to the diocese, and to my family. Though 
sooner exhausted than I used to be, I do not find my 
powers fail when called forth for a short exertion. But 
though I am by many years the latest born of the family. I 
may consider myself as practically the oldest ; as one year 
of my life is equal in point of wear and tear to two of most 
people's. Xot but that others have their toils and their 
trials : which compared with mine, are an English thunder- 
shower to a West Indian hurricane. 

6 1 sent you yesterday a copy of the first edition of the 
Bacon, as I can replace it with a copy of the new edition 
now just about to come out. There are, in this latter, a 
few, but trifling additions. 

6 1 have but a limited number of copies at my disposal, 
as it is only the theological and educational books that I 
retain altogether in my own hands. 

4 1 have no doubt I could have gained more than double 
what popularity I have gained, if I would have consented 
to point out the faults of one side only, and just kept 



326 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [)857 

silence as to the opposite. Many who were delighted with 
the "• Cautions/' as long as the Roman Catholics and the 
Tractites were exposed, " went back, and walked no more " 
with us, when the Low Church faults were exposed. 

' I heartily sympathise with your rector about pews^ 
but I know by experience, that even with his bishop on 
his side, he will have great difficulties in carrying his 
point. He should read the " Essay on Negotiating," with 
the annotations, which may furnish some useful hints to 
those who can apply them with discretion. But "what 
art ever taught its own right application ? " You should 
have sent earlier for the cuttings. However, you may 
coax them to strike under a bell-glass. I have added 
some of the Weigela, a beautiful hardy shrub, if you have 
it not, and also a few seeds of a beautiful and fragrant 
lupine, which you possibly may not have. 

' I send you an order on Parker for copies of the Lessons 
which you may give or lend to those who are too poor to 
buy, and who are likely to be interested. 

6 With kind regards to my Halesworth friends, 
' Yours very truly, 

' Ed. Whately.' 

'April 18, 1857. 

• My dear Mrs. Hill, — It is not our identity we should 
lose by oblivion, but the consciousness of it; which alone 
makes us care about it. 

6 You cannot doubt that it was really you that suffered 
in your babyhood from cutting your first teeth, but you 
have no memory of it. And if we could as completely 
lose all memory of our whole life, like Virgil's ghosts, 
who were dipped in Lethe (^En. vi.), though reason would 
tell us that it would be we who should afterwards enjoy or 
suffer, we could not bring our feelings to acknowledge it. 
. . The sermon might be entitled " The L T se of an 
Educated Ministry, 5 ' or " Mental Culture required for 
Christian Ministers," or " Human Learning employed in 
the Cause of Religion." 

' Few passages of Scripture are oftener cited than " those 



^Et. 70] LETTER TO MISS CRABTREE. 327 

who sleep in Jesus ; " but it is an utter mistranslation, as 
you will at once perceive, though happily it leads to no 
error in doctrine. " Without God in the world," is another 
passage which is often cited, though in a mistaken sense. 
It means that it was the aOsoi that were 6e in the world ; " 
i. e. the heathen world. 

6 Ever truly yours, 

' K. W.' 

Miss Crabtree had sent the Archbishop a little book for 
children, by a friend of hers. He was always genuinely 
fond of works for children and young people ; but con- 
sidered they required to be written with even more care 
than those for adults. The following criticism was 
suggested by .the perusal of the book in question : — 

(-Dublin: June 12, 1857. 

' My dear Miss C. — That little book seems to me in too 
high-flown language for young children. 

'I think it is also too uniformly tragical. Children 
should be trained gradually to contemplate worldly afflic- 
tions aright ; but a very bitter dose presented to them all 
at once may disgust or depress them. I don't know in 
what sense your friend uses u influence." I have a very 
short essay on it (in my Commonplace Book), in the 
original and strict sense ; and if you are curious about it, 
I would have it transcribed for you. My attention was 
early called to the subject by observing that some possess 
much of it, and some a little, and some — myself among 
them — none at all.' 

'August 7, 1857. 
6 My dear Senior, — On receiving your letter I procured 
the " North British Eeview." I agree with you in some- 
what wondering that they received your article ; because, 
besides other reasons, the preface to my Bacon shows up 
some of their writing. But this they probably overlooked. 
I think it not unlikely your article will be read and 
approved by some who, if it had appeared in the u Edin- 



328 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TTHATELY. [1857-8 

burgh," might have never seen it 3 or if they did. would 
have disliked it. 

' Considering how many religious communities there are 
in England, all of Dissenters, and that all Protestants are 
Dissenters from the Eoman Church, and revolted subjects, 
it is no wonder that the ideas of independence, and of dis- 
agreement^ and schism should be associated in men's 
minds, and that it should be taken for granted that the 
only alternative is. on the one side, union under one 
government, and on the other, differences of doctrine. 
But there is no necessary connexion between the things 
thus, through custom, associated in the thoughts. (See 
Lesson x. § 4, on Eeligious Worship.) 

' The American Episcopal Church is kept distinct from 
ours, not by opposition in doctrine, but simply by being 
American. And the Swedish and Danish Churches, which 
are subject to no common authority on earth, do not, I 
believe, differ at all. The apostles, who certainly did not 
seek to introduce diversity of doctrine, founded many 
distinct independent churches (agreeing, I presume, with 
you, that the union of vast masses of people in one com- 
munity is inexpedient) even in the same province : as 
Thessalonica and Philippi in Macedonia, ece. And in 
early times there must have been hundreds of such 
churches, distinct, but not opposed. 

' But a disagreement on points purely speculative is 
probably a benefit, when it so happens that the persons in 
question would — but for such disagreement — have thought 
themselves bound to live under one government on earth.* 

In the August of this year the British Association held 
its annual meeting in Dublin. The Archbishop, as he 
had done in Belfast in 1852, superintended the department 
of the ' Statistical Society,' of which he had so long been 
president. But he always regretted that the arrange- 
ments of the Association prevented his attendance on any 
but his own department, and often expressed a wish that 
the different sections could be so ordered as to occupy 
different days or hours, so as to permit those specially 



JEt. 71] HIS GREAT INTEREST IN MISSIONS. • 3*29 

engaged in different departments to attend those of other 
branches, and thus avoid that exclusiveness which atten- 
tion to one branch of knowledge alone is liable to produce. 
His own tastes were far removed from this exclusiveness ; 
he took an interest in almost every department of science, 
and constantly attended the meetings of the Zoological, 
Natural History, Ethnological and other societies. 

In the visit of Dr. Livingstone, who took a part this 
year in the meetings of the British Association, the Arch- 
bishop took a lively interest, and entered warmly into his 
plans for civilising the South African tribes. 

In the early part of the year 1858, he had an accident 
in which he narrowly escaped being unfitted for future 
exertion in the way of public speaking or preaching. He 
had been receiving a visit from the eminent American 
missionary at Constantinople (since deceased), Dr. D wight, 
whose account of his work had greatly interested him. 
He rose before Dr. D. left, to look for a copy of the 
Armenian translation of his ' Lessons on the Evidences oi' 
Christianity,' which he wished to present to him, when 
his foot caught in the carpet in crossing the room ; he was 
tripped up and fell with much violence to the ground. 
At first it was apprehended that all the front teeth would 
have been lost ; but by great care the evil was averted. 

His interest in foreign missionary work was very lively 
and constant. His own ' Lessons on Evidences ' had 
already, as has been observed, been translated into many 
different languages, and he was ever ready to help in the 
work of getting them printed and circulated. 

His active and efficient support of the venerable Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, a 
branch of which he first established in Ireland, is well 
known; but his interest in the labours of missionaries 
was not confined to his own communion. In the labours 
of Dr. Livingstone in Africa, as before observed, and of 
Mr. Ellis in Madagascar, he was greatly interested; and 
his support and countenance were always heartily given 
to the missions of the Moravians. He often remarked 
that they, of all others, worked the most successfully 



330 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1858 

among the savage heathen ; and that they seemed emi- 
nently to have succeeded in the difficult task of evangelis- 
ing slaves, without tempting them to revolt against their 
masters. 

Not less constant and active was his sympathy and 
interest in the Waldenses, and his testimony to the pru- 
dence and Christian meekness and forbearance which they 
united with such resolute courage and endurance through- 
out their whole history, was always very strong. 

The Archbishop took the chair at a meeting of the 
Patagonian or South American Missionary Society, and 
warmly advocated its claims. He pointed out that in- 
struction in the elements of civilisation must ever accom- 
pany the introduction of Christianity — for a savage, as 
such, could not understand what Christianity meant. One 
who cannot be made to believe in to-morrow can hardly 
be expected to look to a future state. But by pointing 
out to savages advantages which they can understand and 
value, in the common arts of life, they may be led more 
willingly to attend to the teaching of those who can show 
them the way of salvation. 

He was now engaged in preparing an edition of Paley's 
' Moral Philosophy,' with annotations. He heartily appre- 
ciated Paley's excellences; but he was strongly alive to 
the danger of following his system of morals, which he 
considered as, in fact, disallowing the moral faculty in 
man. His chief object in publishing these annotations 
was to put readers on their guard with respect to this 
danger. 

He took as lively an interest in writing and arranging 
these annotations, as in composing an entirely original 
work ; and bestowed indefatigable pains on the com- 
pilation of the shortest note. 

In this year, while his son-in-law's family were again 
his guests, his liveliest feelings of affection were called 
forth by the dangerous illness of his eldest grandchild 
from typhus fever. In no common degree attached to all 
these little ones, this firstborn had been the object of 
special and almost passionate affection ; and his son-in-law 



JEr. 71] EXTRACTS FROM ME. SENIOR'S JOURNAL. 331 

remembered afterwards frequently finding him alone and 
engaged in earnest prayer for the preservation of this 
beloved child, with marks of the strongest emotion. His 
feelings were so seldom outwardly manifested that they 
seemed all the more intense when the veil was for a 
moment torn down and their depth and strength betrayed 
to others. 

Mr. Senior again paid a visit to his old friend in the 
autumn of this year, and again we insert some extracts 
from his journal : — 

Extracts from Mr. Senior's Journal. 

'Nov. 13, 185S. 

' My wife's maid told her this morning that my brother's 
coachman, a zealous Romanist, had asked her whether 
she believed the Apostles' Creed. 

6 Of course she answered, " Yes." 

6 " Then," he said, " you believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church, and you ought to obey it ; and you believe in 
the communion of saints, and you ought to pray to them." 

' " I did not know how to answer him," said she, u and 
in fact I am not sure what is the meaning of those words." 

' I mentioned to the Archbishop her difficulty. 

' " I understand," he answered, " the second branch of 
the sentence to be merely an explanation of the first, and 
read the whole thus: *I believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church ' — that is to say — * I believe in the communion of 
saints.' In the early times in which that creed was com- 
posed, the word ' saint' was used as opposed to i heathen.' 
It meant not a person of peculiar sanctity, but simply a 
professor of Christianity. All that the creed declares is 
the existence of a Christian communion, or, to use a more 
modern word, of a Christian community — a body of which 
Christ is the Head ; and all who believe in Him, however 
distinguished by varieties of belief in other respects, Pro- 
testants and Roman Catholics, Trinitarians and Arians, 
Latins and Greeks, whether living or dead, are the mem- 
bers. At the same time, I rep-ret that the word Catholic 



332 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1&58 

is used in the creed, or rather I regret that we have 
acquiesced in its assumption by the Eomanists. 

6 " We qualify it by adding the word ' Roman ; ' but 
that destroys its meaning. 

' " It indicates, however, the confusion of the ideas 
which the Eomanists endeavour to attach to the word 
6 catholic' They claim both unity and universality. Now, 
if the Catholic Church is universal — that is, if it com- 
prehends all Christians — then we and the Greeks are as 
Catholic as the Eomanists are, and there is no unity. If 
the Catholic Church includes only those who assent to the 
conclusions of the Council of Trent, then we and the 
Greeks — in fact, the majority of Christians — are excluded 
from it, and there is no universality. 

' " It is clear," he continued, " that a Catholic Church, 
in the Eomanist sense, did not exist even in the first years 
of Christianity ; dissensions, and even heresies, disturbed 
the churches addressed by St. John and by St. Paul ; and 
the remedy suggested by St. Paul is not a recourse to any 
human authority — to any living depositary of infallibility, 
but ' watchfulness ' — that is, earnest enquiry, the very 
conduct which Eome forbids." 

c " I find," I said, u that it is not true that, in this war 
of conversion, the gain and loss are balanced. Your 
daughters tell me that the number of converts to Pro- 
testantism is large, and that to Eoman Catholicism very 
small; but that the former belong to the lower classes, 
the latter to the gentry." 

' " All that is true," he answered, " and it seems strange 
that the converts to Eoman Catholicism should belong to 
the most educated — to the class which has been most 
taught to reason. 

' " But, in fact, it is not by reasoning that they are 
converted. The Eoman Catholic Church does not appeal 
to reason, but to authority ; and she does not allow even 
the grounds of her authority to be examined. They are 
converted through their imagination or their feelings; 
they yield to the love of the beautiful, the ancient, the 
picturesque. Afterwards, indeed, they sometimes try to 



Mt. 71] EXTRACTS FROM MR. SEXIOR'S JOURNAL. 333 

defend themselves by reasoning; but that is as if a jury 
should first deliver their verdict, and then hear the 
evidence." 

'" One friend of mine," I said. "told me that he was 
converted by reasoning. He could find no medium, he 
said, between believing the Gospels to be mere human, 
uninspired records of our Saviour's doctrines, and believ- 
ing that the inspiration which protected the evangelists 
from error is still given to the successors of St. Peter, and 
to the Church over which they preside." 

'"That might be reasoning," said the Archbishop, 
si but it is bad reasoning. If it were possible that he 
could prove that there is no better evidence of the inspi- 
ration of St. Luke than there is of the inspiration of the 
Pope, he still would not have advanced a step towards 
proving the Pope to be inspired, Such, however, are the 
shifts to which those who are in search of infallibility are 
forced to have recourse. They cannot deny that the 
primitive church was infested by errors, even in the times 
of the apostles. They cannot deny that, if there was an 
infallible interpreter of Christianity, the apostles must 
have known of his existence, and were bound to point 
him out to their churches ; and they cannot affirm that 
they did so." 

' The Archbishop has been reading my journal. 

c " The picture of the priests," he said, " is melancholy, 
but, I fear, faithful; and we, the English people, are 
answerable for much of their perverseness, When Lord 
G-renville was congratulated on the approach of Catholic 
Emancipation — a measure which he had always supported 
— he refused to rejoice in it. ' You are not going to pay 
the priests, 5 he said, 6 and therefore you will do more 
harm than good by giving them mouthpieces in Parlia- 
ment. 5 A priest, solely dependent on his flock, is in fact 
retained by them to give the sanction of religion to the 
conduct, whatever it be, which the majority chooses. The 
great merit of ' Dred 5 is the clearness with which this is 
exemplified in the Slave States. What can be more un- 
christian than slavery, unless indeed it be assassination ? 



334 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1858 

And vet a whole clergy, of different denominations. aoTee- 
ing in nothing but that they are maintained on ttie volun- 
tary system, combine to support slavery. 

' " Notwithstanding the evils of religious controversy, I 

rejoice in the conversions, which, together with emigra- 
tion, are altering the proportion of the numbers of the 
two sects. 

'"Though your friends here.'" he continued, "who see 
and feel the evils of the Lord-Lieutenancy, may be unani- 
mous as to its abolition, I doubt whether it is equally 
disapproved in England. England has no experience of 
the state of feeling in Ireland. There is no party there 
against the Queen, no party opposed to the executive as 
the executive. Here, in Ireland, with every change of 
ministry we have a change of sovereign, and the party 
opposed to the ministry for the time being is opposed to 
the Lord-Lieutenant, and does everything to make his 
administration unpopular and unsuccessful." 

' " They are equally opposed,*' I said, " to the English 
Prime Minister and to the English Home Office.'" 

'"Yes," he answered, ''but they have not the same 
power to make their opposition tell. The Lord-Lieutenant 
lives among them ; they can worry and tease him. He is 
a hostage, given by the ministry to their enemies. If he 
likes popularity, or even dislikes censure, he tries to con- 
ciliate, or at least to avoid irritating his opponents. The 
Irish government therefore is generally timid. It some- 
times does what it ought not to do, and still more fre- 
quently does not do what it ought to do. If Ireland were 
governed from the English Home Office, would the poor 
father and mother whose child was stolen from them from 
the Castle Knock National School have been treated with 
such bitter mockery? Would a man earning \0$. a week 
have been told that the remedy was to spend 50/. in 
sueing out a Habeas Corpus ? 

' ee People talk about the laborious duties of the office. 
I know what they are, for I have often been a Lord-Justice. 
Half an hour a week performs them; and I never heard 
that Ireland was peculiarly ill-governed under the Lord- 



^Et. 71] EXTRACTS FROM MR. SENIORS JOURNAL. 335 

Justices, or in fact that the want of the Lord-Lieutenant 
was perceived. I have known several Lord-Lieutenants 
who worked hard, but they made almost all the business 
that they did. They were squirrels working in a cage. 
There is no use in sweeping a room if all the dust comes 
out of the broom. The only persons who would be really 
inconvenienced by the change would be the half-dozen 
tradesmen who now supply the Lodge and the Castle. 

' " But I can propose an indemnity even for them. My 
hope is, that one day the great absentee will return — that 
the Queen will be an Irish resident. The short visits of 
Her Majesty — for less than a week at a time — only excite 
the people of Dublin, make them mad for two or three 
days, and have no results. I wish her to live among us 
for five or six weeks at a time, to know us, and to be 
known — I really believe that this would make the people 
loyal. 

' " There can be no loyalty — at least no personal loyalty 
-—to a mere idea, to a person who is never seen. Ireland 
now looks upon itself as a province ; it does not realise — 
to use an Americanism — that it is as much a part of the 
empire as Scotland i^. It is always thinking of an Irish 
policy. I will not say that the Queen's annual residence 
in Scotland has much to do with the loyalty of the Scotch, 
or with their looking on Great Britain as a whole, but I 
cannot doubt that it has contributed to those feelings.'* ■ 

'Not. 21, 1858, 
' We were to have left Redesdale yesterday, but a violent 
gale from the SW. has raised a sea which we do not choose 
to encounter. 

'I talked to the Archbishop of "The Society for the 
Protection of the Eights of Conscience," of which he is the 
founder. 

6 " It does not attempt," he said, " to protect a man from 
every sort of persecution ; that is to say, from every sort 
of annoyance or inconvenience which he may meet with 
on account of his religion. It leaves the courts of law to 
defend his person and his property from physical injury, 



333 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP ATHATELY. [1858-9 

inflicted or threatened. It does not affect to protect him 
or even indemnify him against much persecution which he 
may have to suffer, though it may be severe, and though 
it may be of a kind of which the courts of law can seldom 
take cognisance ; such as harassing disputations, remon- 
strances and solicitations, derision, abuse, and denuncia- 
tions of Divine wrath, 

6 " Such annoyances are incidental to religious schism 
when each party is sincere and zealous. They are to be 
deplored and endured. An offer of compensation for them 
would in many cases be a bribe, and in all cases would be 
an attempt to exempt men from trials to which Providence 
has subjected us, as tests of sincerity and as means of ex- 
hibiting patience, firmness, and faith. All that we can do 
in this respect is earnestly to enjoin on all within our 
influence to abstain from inflicting such persecutions, and 
to submit to them themselves, as an opportunity of show- 
ing their hearty devotion to the service of their Master. 

6 " But there is a third kind of persecution, for which 
there is no redress by law, and which inflicts physical evils 
for which patience and faith are no remedies. 

' " This persecution is the old excommunication ; it is 
6 aquae et ignis interdictio ; ' it is the denial of employment, 
indeed of intercourse. 

* K A convert, or even a few converts, surrounded by a 
hostile population, refused work, refused land, and refused 
custom, may have to starve, or to have recourse to the 
poor-house, perhaps to be refused admittance there, per- 
haps, if admitted, to be exposed to intolerable brutality 
and indignity. This is a temptation to the weak and a 
hardship on the strong, which cannot be witnessed or heard 
of with indifference by any one who has any feelings of 
humanity, any sense of justice, or any conscientious con- 
victions. As the law is powerless, individuals or a combi- 
nation of individuals must step in. 

6 " It is not as a Protestant or as a convert, or even as a 
Protestant convert in distress, that any one receives aid 
from us, but as an industrious and well-conducted man, 
who has been excluded from employment, and left to 



Mr. 72] LETTER TO MR. SENIOR. 337! 

starvation, on merely religious grounds. And to any one 
so circumstanced all who disclaim persecution are bound 
to give relief, whatever be the ground of his exclusion ; 
whether it be his belief, whether he be excommunicated 
as a Protestant, a Papist, or an atheist. 

4 " It is because Protestants only are so persecuted that 
the society assumes in the eyes of the public a Protestant 
colour. It is, in the true sense of the word, Catholic. It 
is open to all who are thus persecuted for conscience 
sake/' ' 

Of the year 1859 there is but little to record. He was 
not in parliament that year ; and, with the exception of a 
short visit to England in the early part of it, it was spent 
in his usual diocesan and literary avocations. 

Lord Wicklow had suggested grants of books being 
made to schools not under the Board, and on this subject 
he wrote to Mr. Senior : — 

'Dublin: April 14, 1859. 

' My dear Senior, — As for Lord Wicklow's suggestion, 
the books of the Board are to be had now, very cheap, and 
so very little above prime cost, that the difference would 
not afford any effectual support to any school. 

6 Why then should this be so eagerly sought ? Evidently 
for the insertion of the thin edge of the wedge. It would 
be a Government recognition and sanction of denomina- 
tional schools. And soon after, a claim would be made 
(no unreasonable one), and granted, for some effectual aid 
to the schools set up in avowed rivalry to the National 
Schools ! 

' If we were to send the King of Sardinia one company 
of soldiers to fight against Austria, he would probably be 
very glad. Not that this handful of men could do any 
valuable service, but we should have sanctioned the war, 
and engaged in it ; and we should be expected to send, 
soon after, two or three regiments to support that company, 
and then a powerful army to support these. 

' A camel, according: to the Arabian fable, be^ed leave 

Z 



838 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [l859 

one cold night to put the tip of his nose inside a tent for 
warmth; having got his nose in, he next intruded his 
head and shoulders, and then his hind quarters ; and then 
he lay down before the fire, and turned away all the rest. 
' I have sent the Bishop of Cork a curious document, an 
Address from the Eoman Catholic Bishops, claiming a 
separate grant. He is to have it reprinted, or not, as he 
may judge best. If he does not, he will send it to you to 
look at and show your friends. 

6 Yours ever, 

' E. W.' 

To Miss Crabtree, who had asked his Opinion of the 
Revival Movement then going on. 

'Oct. 10, 1859. 

' My dear Miss Crabtree, — The revivals are doing both 
good and evil. Which will ultimately predominate is more 
than I can as yet pronounce. Much will depend on the 
conduct of many persons, most of whom I am unacquainted 
with. 

6 1 send you the best pamphlets that have appeared. 
They are by judicious and impartial men. Most of the 
other publications take a part. They either condemn the 
whole as an outbreak of frenzy, or proclaim hysterical 
shrieks and fits as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 

* Now to me it appears that true Christianity is a very 
quiet and deliberate religion. It keeps the steam acting 
on the wheels, instead of noisily whizzing out at the safety 
valve. 

c I cannot tell how I came to send you cuttings of the 
common elder for the scarlet. But what I conjecture is 
this, I have a common elder grafted with the scarlet, and 
I suspect that the stock must have sent up a surreptitious 
shoot which mingled with the branches of the true, and 
was mistaken for one of them. 

6 Now this may suggest a useful parable for the present 
time. When the " natural man " is grafted with true re- 
ligion (by a revival, or anyhow) we are apt to feel care- 
lessly confident from the certainty that the graft is of the 



Mr. 72] DEATH OF HIS YOUNGEST DAUGHTER. 339 

t 

right sort, and has taken, and is flourishing. But without 

continual vigilance, shoots from the wild stock will im- 
perceptibly grow up, and getting intermingled with the 
branches of the graft will pass for one of them. A tree 
that is headed down and grafted with a different kind, 
may be said to have undergone a " new birth,*' but it is 
not therefore safe unless it be continually and carefully 
watched. 

' I believe that, besides other evils, the tone of some rash 
enthusiasts has done much to foster the kind of infidelity 
now prevailing, which calls itself spiritual Christianity. 
"You call any remarkable occurrence that favours your 
views miraculous ; and so no doubt did the Apostles. They 
reckoned as inspiration any vehement excitement, any 
strong impression made on men's minds." ' 

This year was to be the last of his united family life ; 
his home from thenceforth was to be a desolated one. 
Hitherto he had been singularly exempt from ordinary 
domestic bereavements ; his elder sisters had, indeed, one 
by one departed, but their advanced age rendered this an 
event to be looked for in the course of nature, and his 
daily life, from his residence in Ireland, had been little 
affected by the removal of those out of his domestic circle. 
Some friends very dear and valuable to him had indeed 
been removed ; but his own home party had been hitherto 
untouched. But now the time was come for the hand of 
affliction to be heavily laid on him, and it came in a form 
peculiarly affecting. His youngest daughter had been 
married in the November of that year to Captain George 
Wale, E.N., the brother of his son-in-law Charles Wale, 
under circumstances offering every promise of a bright 
future. The family festivity attending the wedding had, 
indeed, been shadowed with a first touch of sorrow in the 
sickness and death of a newborn grandchild : but this was 
to be the beginning of sorrows. The new-married pair 
were to reside in Ireland, and scarcely a month after the 
marriage they came to spend Christmas under the old 
family roof at the Palace, on their way to their new abode. 

z 2 



340 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1860 

Within three days the bride sickened with a fatal illness : 
and after ten weeks' acute suffering, the child of so many 
hopes was carried to her grave (in March 1860) — a bride 
of scarce four months. But this afflictioD did not come 
singly. Another member of the family was threatened 
with pulmonary symptoms and ordered to avoid the spring- 
east winds of the Dublin coast ; and the bereaved family 
accordingly removed to Hastings. There, in the middle 
of April, one short month after the daughter's death, her 
mother, worn out with long watching and sorrow, coming 
on an already over-taxed frame, was carried off by a short 
but sharp illness of only five days' duration. 

The bereaved husband and father was, as we have said, 
not one to show his feelings ; even those nearest to him 
could only guess at what passed within, and hardly they. 
He was now becoming very infirm, and could not, as in 
early days, watch by the invalid. At her own request, 
the day before her death, he came to read to her the ser- 
vice for the Visitation of the Sick. He made a strong 
effort to go through it, but his voice broke down at the 
first sentence, and he was obliged to give up the book to 
another. 

In the midst of his own grief and increasing infirmities, 
he found time to write a touching letter to his grandchild 
in Ireland (his son's eldest daughter) on the departure of 
those two loved ones, exhorting her to follow in their 
steps. 1 From his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who 
had both hastened to join him, he received the most affec- 
tionate and devoted attention : for some time he remained 
under the roof of the former at Tud bridge Wells. In June 
he insisted, notwithstanding the entreaties of his friends, 
on returning to Dublin for his visitation and other duties, 
and went through them more easily than could have been 
expected. The rest of the summer was spent with his 
daughter and son-in-law in Cambridgeshire, and in the 
autumn he returned to Ireland and took up his residence 
in a smaller place nearer to Dublin than the former, be- 

1 This much-prized letter has unhappily fallen into other hands, and 
cannot therefore be published. 



2Et. 73] LETTER TO MISS CKABTREE. 341 

tween which and the Palace he spent the last three years 
of his life. 

Of the letters that follow the first was written a little 
before the first of these bereavements ; the others later. 

To Miss Crabtree. 

'Dublin: March 2, 1860. 

' A bishop who is anxious above all things for a peace- 
ful life will do well to imitate a bishop whom you remem- 
ber by sitting still and doing nothing at all. And one 
who would be popular must ever swim with the stream. 
But one who is discreet as well as active and conscientious 
will consider that above half of the evils that have ever 
existed, have arisen from something good in itself and 
done well, but which has afforded a precedent and an en- 
couragement to something evil in imitation of it. The 
Ass, according to the fable (which is one of most extensive 
application), followed the precedent of the Lapdog. Nelson 
gained the victory of Copenhagen by disobeying orders. 
If a few more such instances had occurred, and it had 
been thence the practice for every subaltern officer and 
private sailor or soldier, who might think he knew better 
than his commander, to collect a party of his comrades, 
and act as he thought best, this would before lono* convert 
the finest possible army into a rabble of undisciplined 
guerillas. 

6 If some period of great excitement had occurred when 
I was at Halesworth, and I had thrown myself at once 
into it without any precaution, I should probably have 
gained more reputation, and produced more striking 
effects, some good and some evil, than by my quiet un- 
pretending explanatory lectures in which I laboured night 
after night, and week after week, in patiently laying on 
" line upon line, precept upon precept ; here a little and 
there a little." ' 



342 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1860-1 

To Bishop Hinds, a few days after his Daughter's death. 

'March 10, 1860. 

6 My dear Hinds, — We are friends of fifty years' stand- 
ing ; and you write like one. 

' I ought to dwell on the contrast between your letter 
and that addressed to Cicero on a similar occasion, by 
Sulpicius, a kind-hearted friend, and a man of cultivated 
mind ! May we find grace to think of the blessing be- 
stowed on us ! 

6 But, humanly speaking, the trial is very sharp, to have 
such a cup of happiness, when just tasted, dashed from the 
lips. And the eleven weeks of severe suffering to the dear 
patient, and of painful toil and anxiety to all of us, has 
broken down the health of the whole party.' 

To Miss Crabtree he adds, two months later : ' I have 
faith, on Scripture warrants, in intercessory prayer ; and 
I am sure you will be ready to pray for us, that we may 
be supported under these heavy strokes of affliction.' 

The year 1861 was also marked by much trial; partly 
from alarming illness among members of his family, and 
partly from other causes of grief, which pressed heavily on 
him. His immediate circle was now a reduced one ; his 
son-in-law was obliged to remove with his family to the 
Continent in consequence of ill-health ; another daughter 
had been previously compelled to reside abroad from the 
same cause during greater part of the year. Only one 
daughter therefore remained with him ; but he bore up 
through all with characteristic firmness and calm dignity ; 
and though increasing infirmities might well have fur- 
nished an excuse for withdrawing from his official duties, 
the visitation and confirmations were performed as usual. 
It was touching to see the deep solemnity with which the 
trembling hands were placed on the young heads ; and, 
though the fatigue and exhaustion obliged him to pause 
and rest in the middle of the ceremony, the usual ad- 
dresses were not omitted, and the voice which had lost 



JEt. 74] HIS LAST VISIT TO TUNBRIDGE WELLS. 343 

much of its full clear tones, still spoke the words of ex- 
hortation to the young candidates with impressive earnest- 
ness. Nor were his literary occupations discontinued. 
Writing was now become painful and difficult ; but he still 
corrected the proofs of each new edition, and still dic- 
tated articles for the ' Commonplace Book,' and papers for 
several magazines to which he occasionally contributed; 
and frequently sent memoranda to friends on some subject 
of interest and importance. 

Though unequal to much general society, he was able 
to enjoy a social circle in his own home; and many will 
remember the evenings when he would discourse to a few 
gathered round him, with his wonted life and power of 
illustration, on a variety of topics of interest, or comment 
on a passage of some favourite work he would cause to be 
read aloud to him ; and at the breakfast table he was 
always full of conversation and ready to enter on the sub- 
jects of the day or to impart information on various 
matters small and great. 

Part of the summer of this year was passed with his 
friend Mr. Senior in London, and with his relations at 
Tunbridge Wells; and the change of scene and society 
seemed to cheer and interest him. 

His brother-in-law has preserved some recollections of 
that time. ' He was always partial,' he writes, 6 to Tun- 
bridge Wells ; and in his latter visits, which continued till 
within a year of his death, he had pleasure in renewing 
intercourse with some of his old college friends. 

6 He had often preached for his brother-in-law in the old 
chapel of ease to large and attentive congregations ; and 
many will remember the last time he addressed them 
from that pulpit on August 4, 1861, when from the effect 
of paralysis of one side he was hardly able to ascend the 
stairs. 

6 A mutual esteem existed between him and Archbishop 
Sumner, and the last time these met was at Tunbridge 
Wells on May 29, 1860, though only to exchange tokens 
of recognition on each side of the railway platform.' 

Thus far the recollections of his last visits to his fa- 



344 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1861-2 

vourite old resort. The following letter to Mrs. Arnold 
shows that his intellectual activity was as untiring as 
ever : — 

To Mrs. Arnold. 

'December 16, 1861. 

• 'My dear Friend, — You must excuse my writing very 
rarely aud very briefly, as it is fatiguing, from the palsy 
having extended to my right hand. But J— — will tell 
you all about us from time to time. 

6 1 am (as the Yankees say) most u powerful weak." But 
I am thankful that my intellect does not yet seem much 
affected ; only I am soon exhausted. The last charge was 
thought to be equal to any former ones. But it took me 
as many weeks as it would formerly days. 

6 To think of such a wreck as I am having survived the 
poor Prince ! 

6 He is a great loss to the public. 

c Towards me he was always most gracious. Two or 
three times I sent him little books of mine for his chil- 
dren, and he always acknowledged them in his own hand.' 



jEt. 75] SUFFEKS FEOM NEURALGIC GOUT. 345 



CHAPTER XIV. 

1862—1863. 

Suffers from neuralgic gout — Attends the Session of the Statistical Society, 
and contributes a paper on Secondary Punishments — Letter to C. Wale, 
Esq. — Visit of Mr. Senior — Extracts from Mr. Senior's Journal — Ex- 
periments on Charring — Conversation on Roman proselytising — Remarks 
on the falsehood of commonly received maxims — Visit of Dr. de Ricei, 
and interesting conversation on religious endowments — Gradual decline 
of the Archbishop — Visit of his sister-in-law — Journal of the Rev. 
H. Dickinson — His last Charge — Presides at the monthly dinner to his 
Clergy — Increase of his bodily sufferings — Interesting conversation with 
Mr. Dickinson — Apprehensions respecting his state of health — Continued 
interest in literary pursuits — Tender attentions of his family in his last 
moments — His patient resignation — His delight in the Eighth of Romans 
— Receives the Lord's Supper with his family — Progress of the disease 
and great physical suffering— Parting interview with his favourite grand- 
child — Visited by Mrs. Senior — His anxious desire to die — His death — 
Lines on his death. 

In the spring of 1862 he suffered greatly from an 
affection of the leg, supposed to be neuralgic gout ; the 
pain was at times very severe, and the case a tedious one ; 
but he entirely recovered from it, and was again enabled 
to pay a visit to his English friends, but being feeble, 
seemed to enjoy it less. That autumn his son-in-law and 
daughter paid him a visit from abroad, which greatly 
cheered and refreshed him ; and later his friend Mr. Senior 
spent some time with him. He still continued occasion- 
ally to preach ; but the weakness of his voice had increased, 
and the effort was evidently a painful one. 

But even in this year he came to. the opening meetings 
of the Statistical Society, which he had so long and steadily 
supported, to receive the Lord-Lieutenant and to hear the 
address of the Solicitor-General. Late in the c session ' of 
the Society he contributed to their proceedings the paper 



346 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1862 

containing the notes of a conversation between himself and 
Mr. Senior on Secondary Punishments, and took part in 
the discussion which followed. 

He continued to contribute articles to several magazines, 
and from time to time to add to the stores of his Com- 
monplace Book; but letters were more and more of an 
effort to him. The following letter to his son-in-law is 
the only one we give in this year : — 

'February 1, 1862. 

' My dear Charles, — .... To-day I enter on my 
seventy-sixth year. I do not think it probable I shall 
reach the end of it. But what I am anxious about and 
earnestly pray against is, continuing alive after having 
ceased to live, i.e. becoming — as is a common fate of 
paralytic patients — a wretched burden to myself and all 
around me. 

s I do not as yet, myself, perceive much decay of intel- 
lectual power, except that I am very soon exhausted. I 
can write nearly as well in ten days, as I formerly could 
in two.' .... 

We have mentioned that Mr. Senior was the Archbishop's 
guest in the autumn of 1862. The following extracts from 
his journal will show what subjects were mostly occupying 
my father's mind, and illustrate the freshness and vigour 
of intellect which remained unabated in the midst of 
bodily infirmities which were gradually though slowly in- 



Mr. Seniors Journal. 

'Nov. 8, 1862. 

6 1 left Ashton this morning to visit the Archbishop of 
Dublin, at the Palace in Stephen's Green. 

c He is anxious that the experiment of charring instead 
of burning the surface turf for the purpose of reclaiming 
bogland should be tried. Under the present practice only 
a few pounds of ashes are obtained from an amount of 



^Et. 75] EXTRACTS FROM MR. SENIOR'S JOURNAL. 347 

turf which, if charred, would give hundredweights of peat 
charcoal. 

6 e€ I believe," he said, a that the charcoal would form a 
much more useful ingredient to mix with the subsoil and 
manure than the ashes do. I think it probable, indeed, 
that the peat charcoal w^ould grow farming crops without 
any other soil. Charcoal has the power of absorbing gases 
to an incredible amount, which it gives out to plants and 
thus furnishes to them fresh and continued supply of 
manure. You may see in the Botanical Gardens of 
Trinity College many plants growing in pure peat char- 
coal, and more luxuriantly than similar plants growing in 
earth. 

' " The charcoal is not pulverised, it is merely broken 
into the consistency of coarse gravel. If by this means 
new land could be obtained, not only would there be a 
new supply of food, but new tenants ; English and Scotch 
might be introduced without evictions." ' 

'Nov. 8, 

' The Archbishop has been reading the earlier part of 
this journal. 

4U ," he observed, " when he denies that the Eoman 

Catholic priests are proselytisers, on the ground that he 
never heard from an Irish Eoman Catholic pulpit a con- 
troversial sermon, resembles a man who would say, that a 
bull is an inoffensive animal because he does not bite. 

c " The priests well know that controversy is not their 
forte. They have no general knowledge, and a man 
without general knowledge, though he may be primed 
with separate texts and authorities, is soon silenced by a 
disputant with extensive information. 

' " On the other hand, the more enlightened of the 
Eoman Catholic priests probably suspect, indeed, if they 
are candid, must suspect, that when they differ from us, 
they are often wrong, and therefore are likely to be often 
defeated in argument. They are therefore forced to 
proselytise in a different manner. 

* " They choose for their field of action large parishes 



348 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [I8fi2 

where there is a Protestant population too scattered to be 
attended to by their own minister, and where the benefice 
is too poor to maintain a curate. While visiting their 
own flock they enter the Protestant cabins, and having the 
public opinion of the parish with them, they talk over the 
women, and then the men. 

' " His opinion, that they are not anxious to make con-, 
verts, is absurd. A Eoman Catholic who believes that 
there is no salvation out of his own Church would be a 
monster if he did not compass heaven and earth to make 
proselytes ; and I know that they make many ; but they 
do not boast of them, lest they should attract the notice of 
the Additional Curate Society. 

6 "I also disbelieve his statement, that the Bible readers 
force their way into cabins against the will of their 
owners. 

' " They enter them often against the will of the priest 
and against the will of the Eoman Catholic neighbours, 
but I do not believe that they ever enter a cabin unless 
the husband or the wife wishes them to do so. Under 
such circumstances they are often waylaid and beaten, and 
the converts themselves are subject to the persecution of 
a fanatical peasantry and a fanatical priesthood. The 
priests denounce and curse from the altar all who have 
any dealings with a convert. If it were not for the aid 
afforded by the Conscience Society, which endeavours to 
protect all who suffer for their creed, whatever that creed 
may be, converts would often starve." ' 

'November 17. 

6 The conversation turned this morning on habits. 

' I said that the word " habit " was difficult of definition. 
That most persons, in attempting to define it, fell into 
tautology, calling it an habitual mode of acting or of 
feeling. 

'"The difficulty," said the Archbishop, "is occasioned 
by the confusion of two words, custom and habit, which 
are often used as synonymous, though really distinct ; they 
denote respectively cause and effect. The frequent repe- 



JEt. 75] EXTRACTS FROM MR. SENIOR S JOURNAL. 349 

tition of any act is a custom. The state of mind or of 
body, thereby produced, is a habit. The custom forms 
the habit, and the habit keeps up the custom. So a river 
is produced by a continued flow of water, which scoops for 
itself the bed, which afterwards confines it. And the 
same conduct, occasioned by different motives, will pro- 
duce different habits. A man who controls his temper 
and who acts honestly only from prudence, acquires the 
habit of being gentle among his equals and of acting 
honestly where there is danger of detection ; but he may 
be habitually insolent and irritable and fraudulent, when 
he has nothing to fear. 

6 "I have often said, that though ' Honesty is the best 
policy,' a man who acts on that motive is not really 
honest." 

' " Aristotle's test of a habit," I said, " is that the obe- 
dience to it shall cost no effort. Defining the different 
virtues as habits, he therefore describes them not as duties 
to be performed, but as pleasures to be enjoyed. To a 
certain degree therefore his theory of virtue and Paley's 
agree. Both make virtue a matter of prudence, a means of 
obtaining happiness ; but according to Aristotle, happiness 
in this life, and according to Paley, happiness in another." 

'"And it is" he answered, "a matter of prudence. 
Cceteris paribus, a man is happy even in this life in pro- 
portion to his virtue. 

' " Paley's error was, that in general (for he is not con- 
sistent) he denied a moral sense. He denied an innate 
instinctive feeling in man to approve of some kind of 
actions and to disapprove of others." 

6 " This seems to me," I said, u like denying an instinc- 
tive palate — denying that we instinctively perceive the 
difference between bitter and sweet." 

6 " He confounded," said the Archbishop, " an innate 
moral faculty with innate moral maxims, which is like 
denying an instinctive palate because there is no instinc- 
tive cookery ; though some men, like the Germans, like 
the mixture of sweet and savoury, and some, like the 
French, detest it, all men know the difference." 



350 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [J 862 

c " In your lessons on morality," I said, " you do not 
define duty." 

fc " It cannot be defined," lie answered ; " if you attempt 
to do so you merely use some tautologous expression. A 
man's duty is to do what is right — to do what he ought to do 
— to do what he is bound to do. In short to do his duty. 

' '• The kind of conduct, to follow which is to do our 
duty, is pointed out by the scriptural rule, ' Do unto others 
as you would have them do unto you ; ' that is to say, 
pursue the conduct which you would wish to be uni- 
versally prevalent." 

' " This," I said, " coincides with Bentham's principle of 
utility, or, as it has been sometimes called, expediency." 

' " I have sometimes," said the Archbishop, " asked 
those who object to expediency as a motive, or as a test, 
whether they think that anything which is inexpedient 
ought to be done." 

' I mentioned the speech of a woman, to whom the story of 
the Passion had been read. " Let us hope that it is not 
true." 

6 u We seldom," said the Archbishop, u think with pain on 
our past sufferings, unless we think that they may recur, 
or unless they have inflicted permanent injury. 

' " If the pain has done no harm and cannot return, we 
sometimes even think of it with pleasure, as enhancing by 
contrast our present ease. 

' " But with respect to our friends, we are anxious to 
believe that they have not suffered. There are no past 
evils which people are so apt to grieve about, as those 
which are most utterly past, the sufferings of the deceased. 
One of the most usual enquiries respecting a departed 
friend is, whether he died easily. Nothing is so consolatory 
to the survivors as to learn that he suffered little ; and if 
he died in great agony, it excites their sympathy more 
perhaps than the case of one who is living in torture ; and 
yet this is mere imagination, the sufferings cannot have 
left bad traces, and cannot recur. It is shivering at last 
year's snow. 

; " In our own case, present sufferings are matters of per- 



2Et. 75] EXTRACTS FROM MR. SENIOR'S JOURNAL. 351 

ception, past ones of conception, and the contrast between 
the two is too striking to allow us to confound them. 

' u In the cases of others, all sufferings, both present 
and past, are to us matters of only conception ; we are 
liable, therefore, to confound them, and to suffer real pain 
in consequence of a conception of what is unreal — as we 
do sometimes when reading a tragedy. It is true that 
the pain of which we are speaking once was real, and that 
described in the tragedy may never have been so ; but 
both are equally unreal now — the one never was, the other 
is as if it never had been. 

' " Again, in our own case we resist such feeling ; every 
one makes light of his own past evils. 

' " But we think there is a merit in sympathising or in 
imagining that we sympathise with the sufferings of our 
friends, though our reason tells us, that at the very 
moment at which we are bemoaning them they are per- 
fectly free from affliction. Eeason does not tell us that a 
man who was burnt alive suffered no pain, but it does tell 
us that he suffers none now. 

6 " Another reason why we peculiarly lament death-bed 
sufferings is, that there is no hope of their being compen- 
sated by subsequent health and comfort. This, however, 
would be a fanciful ground of affliction in a heathen, and 
is utterly unchristian. 

' " I believe, that by keeping these apparently obvious 
truths clearly and constantly before the mind, much use- 
less sorrow may be avoided. 

' " You remember," said the Archbishop, " our concoct- 
ing a paper on the Trades Unions, which have destroyed 
the commerce, and the principal manufactures, and handi- 
crafts of Dublin, and force us to import almost everything 
except poplins and porter ; which drive ships from Dublin 
Bay to be repaired in Liverpool, and have rendered our 
canals useless. 

4 " Well, the medical men of Dublin are almost outdoing 
in narrowmindedness, selfishness, and tyranny, the ignorant 
weavers and carpenters. 

'"They have made an ordinance, that no fellow or 



352 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY, []862 

licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons shall pretend 
or profess to cure diseases by the deception called ' homoeo- 
pathy/ or the practice called 'Mesmerism/ or by any 
other form of ' quackery ' and that no fellow or licentiate 
of the college shall consult with, meet, advise, direct, or 
assist any person engaged in such deceptions or practices, 
or in any system of practice considered derogatory or dis- 
honourable by the physicians or surgeons. 

' " In the spirit of this ordinance, a surgeon refused to 
attend me unless I would promise to give up homoeopathy. 

• " In the midst of the disgust and shame which one 
must feel at such proceedings, it is some consolation to 
the advocates of the system denounced, that there is some- 
thing of testimony borne to them by their adversaries, 
who dare not trust the question to the decision of reason 
and experience, but resort to such expedients as might be 
as easily employed for a bad cause as for a good one. 

6 u There is a notion that persecution is connected with 
religion, but the fact is that it belongs to human nature. 
In all departments of life you may meet with narrow- 
minded bigotry, and uncharitable party spirit. Long- be- 
fore the Reformation, Nominalists and Realists persecuted 
each other unmercifully. The majority of mankind have 
no real love of liberty, except that they are glad to have it 
themselves, and to keep it all for themselves ; but they have 
neither spirit enough to stand up firmly for their own rights, 
nor sufficient sense of justice to respect the rights of others. 

'" They will submit to the domineering of a majority 
of their own party, and will join with them in domineering 
over others. I believe that several members of the Royal 
College of Surgeons were overawed into acquiescing in 
this detestable ordinance against their better judgment 
and their better feelings." 

c K Is homoeopathy," I asked, u advancing in Dublin ? " 

' " Rapidly,"' he answered. " Trades Unions among the 
higher orders not being able to employ personal violence, 
are almost powerless. 

4 " I do not believe that the ordinance has really done 
any harm, except indeed to its ordainers." ' 



^Ex. 75] VISIT OF DR. DE RICCI. 353 

'Dr.de Ricci, an Italian physician, settled near Dublin, 
and Mr. Dickson, a former fellow of Trinity College, 
holding a living near Omagh in Tyrone, dined with us. 

'" Ireland," said Dr. de Ricci, "has utterly lost the 
sympathy of Italy. We thought that the Irish were like 
ourselves — an oppressed nation, struggling for freedom; 
we now find that they are quarrelling with England, not 
for the purpose of freeing the people, but of enslaving 
them, for the purpose of planting the foot of the priest 
still more firmly on the necks of his flock, the foot of the 
bishop still more firmly on the neck of the. priest, and the 
foot of the Pope still more firmly on the neck of the 
bishop. We find that they would sacrifice to abject ultra - 
montanism everything that gives dignity or strength to 
human nature." 

' " I deplore," I said, " the ultramontanism of the 
priests, as much as you do, but both the extent of their 
influence and the evil purposes for which they employ it, 
are mainly our fault. By depriving the Roman Catholic 
Church in Ireland of its endowment; by throwing the 
priests on the people for support; by forcing them to 
earn a livelihood, by means of squabbling for fees, and 
by means of inflaming the passions and aggravating the 
prejudices of their flocks, we have excluded all gentlemen 
from the priesthood; we have given them a detestable 
moral and political education ; we have enabled the Pope 
to destroy all the old liberties of the Irish Roman Catholic 
Church ; we have made the priests the slaves of the Pope, 
and the dependents of the peasant." 

6 " But," said Dr. de Ricci, " they have refused an en- 
dowment." 

6 " It was never offered to them," said the Archbishop. 

' " They were asked," said Dr. de Ricci, " if they would 
take one, and they said no." 

6 " Of course they did," said the Archbishop. " If I were 
to go into a ball-room and say, ' Let every young lady, 
who wishes for a husband, hold up her hand ! ' how many 
hands would be held up ? Give them endowment ;• vest in 
commissioners a portion of the national debt, to be appor- 

A A 



354 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TTHATELY. [1862-3 

tioned among the parish priests : let each priest know the 
dividend to which he is entitled, and how he is to draw 
for it : and protect him in its enjoyment from the arbitrary 
tyranny of his bishop, and you will find him no more bound 
by his former refusal, than any one of the young ladies 
would feel that not holding up her hand had bound her to 
celibacy. To do this." he continued, " would be not merely 
an act of policy, but of bare justice. It would be paying 
Roman Catholic priests with Roman Catholic money. The 
taxes are a portion of each man's income, which the State 
takes from him. in order to render to him certain services. 
which it can perform for him better than he can do foi 
himself. Among these one of the most important is the 
maintenance of religion and of religious education. This 
service the State does not render to the Roman Catholics. 
and so far it defrauds them." 

' K Ought it. then." I said. " to pav the ministers of the 
Protestant Dissenters ? " 

6 " Many of those sects/' he answered. i; such as the 
Quakers, the Baptists, and the Congregationalists. are 
founded on the very principle, that the State ought not to 
interfere in matters of religion — thev therefore are out of 
the question : most of the others assent to the doctrines of 
the Established Church, and can take advantage oi its 
ministrations, though they like to add the luxury of 
teachers peculiarly their own: they therefore are pro- 
vided for already. The Unitarians are perhaps the only 
sect, besides the Roman Catholics, who differ from us in 
doctrine, so fundamentally as to require ministers of their 
own. They are few. they are rich, and they ask for no 
aid. If thev did ask for it. I do not see haw it could be 
justly refused."' 

The year 1863 opened tranquilly. There was some in- 
crease of weakness, but it was very gradual. The spring 
was spent much as usual. He enjoyed the society of his 
friends, and especially a visit from his sister-in-law. who 
spent part of the spring and early summer with him ; and 
no special cause appeared for uneasiness. 



Mi. 76] HIS LAST CHARGE. 355 

The following notes, from the journal of his chaplain 
and friend the Kev. Hercules Dickinson, describe the 
occupations of this the last summer of his life : — 

6 The Archbishop gave his last charge in the cathedral 
of Christ Church, Dublin, on June 18, 1863. He was then 
very feeble, and felt that this was likely to be his last. 
He wished to take the opportunity of letting it be under- 
stood, in contradiction of rumours diligently circulated, 
tbat he had not changed his opinions respecting the 
national system of education, but still lamented its com- 
parative failure — a failure arising in great measure from 
the opposition of the clergy of our Church — as the greatest 
blow that could have been given to the cause of the Re- 
formation in Ireland. 

6 Shortly after this charge was delivered, the symptoms 
began to show themselves of an ulcer in the right leg, 
similar to one from which he had endured much pain two 
years before. Notwithstanding the suffering this caused, 
he presided at his usual monthly dinner to his clergy in 
July, and held a special examination for a few candidates 
who were not ready to take orders till after the final 
divinity examination in Trinity College. He took his 
accustomed part at the examination, though the pain was 
so intense that he described it "as if red-hot gimlets were 
being put through his leg." He did not himself hold the 
ordination; and on the Wednesday subsequent to it he 
was, for the first time for many years, unable to hold his 
weekly reception of the clergy. He was then staying at 
his country residence ; and, after the last day of the ex- 
amination for orders, did not again enter the palace in 
St. Stephen's Green till he was brought there on his way 
to his last resting-place in the cathedral, where he had so 
recently delivered his farewell charge.' 

Mr. Dickinson continues : — 

' His sufferings increased each day, and he felt very 
painfully his inability to come into town for the discharge 

A a 2 



356 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [15.33 

of business. His u uselessness," as he called it, was the 
especial trial to his active spirit. One da; ly in 

August, when I went out to see hirn, on my entering his 
study he looked up and said, with tears in his eyes. 
" Have you ever preached a sermon on the text. •' Thy will 
be done ? ' How did you explain it ? n When I replied. 
"Just so," he said: u that is the meaning ; " and added. 
in a voice choked with tears, a But it is hard — very hard 
sometimes — to say it." ' 

He had already consulted his usual medical advisers. 
and would have also seen some of the leading: surgeons 01 
Dublin, had their professional rules admitted of their 
meeting his own attendants : but on no other terms was 
he willing to consent to consultations, and indeed was 
little inclined to be sanguine as to the power of any re- 
medies on himself. 

But early in September it began to be manifest to all 
that a fatal issue must sooner or later be apprehend-::. 
His appetite, which had been always good, began to fail. 
and the decline of strength was more apparent Before 
long, even the excursions in his garden-chair became 
much for his failing powers, and he could only be whe- 
from his bedroom to the adjoining sitting-room. TLe 
chess or backgammon in the evening, which had for some 
time been a resource, now became too fatiguing. As his 
powers gradually decayed, the exertion of holding a be 
had to be discontinued; but he listened with constant in- 
terest to reading aloud, and this was now his chief re- 
source. One of the last things read to him in the garden 
had been the proof-sheets of his daughter's second volume 
on ' Eagged Life in Egypt.' This peculiarly pleased and 
interested him. 

The books he preferred were chiefly of the kind that 
had always been his favourite reading. Works of nc r : a. 
except a few old favourites, rather wearied than enter- 
tained him : but natural history, cariosities of science. 
travels, histories of inventions and discoveries. &C, had a 
never- failing interest for him ; and often, when apparently 



2Et. 76] HIS PATIENT RESIGNATION. 357 

dozing, or sunk in languor and exhaustion, lie would sur- 
prise the reader by remarks on the subject read, obser- 
vations made in former days recurred to, or mistakes 
corrected. 

Till within a short time of the end, he took pleasure in 
listening to music ; old familiar tunes played over to him 
by his daughters soothed and refreshed him, and he would 
often recognise or ask for special favourites with a clear- 
ness of memory that astonished those around him. Often 
such evenings of music would calm his nerves and produce 
sleep. It was not till very near the last, when, on music 
being proposed, he murmured, ' I am past that now.' 

His surviving family were now almost all around him. 
His two unmarried daughters and his son were now joined 
by his brother-in-law, the Eev. W. L. Pope, who came to 
take a part in the attendance on his suffering friend, and 
to cheer and console him in this trial, as he was well fitted 
to do. His son-in-law and married daughter would gladly 
have shared these sacred offices of loving attendance, but 
they were detained abroad by the precarious health of the 
former, who was so soon to follow him. But the cares of 
his relatives around him were shared by the skilful and in- 
defatigable attendance of two old and faithful servants, and 
of several most attached and devoted friends. To the un- 
wearied and assiduous care and affection and personal 
watchfulness of these friends, and especially of his chap- 
lains, his family cannot bear too earnest and grateful a 
testimony. Most especially must they remember the af- 
fectionate care of the Eev. H. H. Dickinson, who was in 
constant attendance on him, and whose thoughtful and 
judicious attentions alleviated, as far as it was possible, the 
intensity of the suffering which now attended every move- 
ment. His helplessness was now so great, that he who had 
all his life waited on himself, could not lift his hand to 
his mouth or turn his head; yet never did a murmur 
escape his lips. 

We again quote from the memoranda of Mr. Dickinson, 
who constantly took notes of an illness so affecting to his 
friends. In these notes we see the veil of reserve some- 



358 LIFE 01 ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. ':^3 

what lifted, which hitherto liad made the * inner life ' a 
mystery, hid even from those nearest to him. Through 
life he had stood forward as a resolute and powerful de- 
fender of the Christian faith , and now it was to be she wn 
to all how the same simple trust in Christ as the only 
Saviour, which has smoothed so many an humble death- 
bed, was to be the stay md staff of the mighty thn li r 
and writer while crossin g the 5 valley of the shadow of 
death.' 

Mr. Dickinson writes : — 

• 5-.t:. 12.— Tills miming I mi :;i the Archlhshop the 
-ixtv-iihith Psi.".zL. His i::T:e:i:- gn— s wtrse. VTh-:i his 
dinn-it ~ir ':;: : tight he said. " Oh h:w I liith- thi thiiu'ht 
it eiting." Yet in these little things he sh:~ s very stmnglv 
the influence of his life-long habit of forcing all his in- 
clinations and actions under the :~:\z ;: reason. And he 
is so considerate for others — so fearful of giving trouble. 
When he could scarcely hring Lin self t; eat he sail to 
his attached servant, who seemed Sstressed^ "But pray 
do not think I am finding fault : I know the fault is in 
myself. 93 It has become extremely difficult to move him 
from the sofa to the bed ; and i: is I aching to see how he 
tries t; c:ntr;l the tut ward express;' Mi ;: suzhrhog lest he 
should sanse listreas : those it him. While the per- 
spiration streams down his face from agony, he restrains 
every murmur of impatience, and says to us repeatedly, 
" YeSj yes 3 I know yoa do all you can. T 

helped." During the night I heard him often murmur, 
•• Lord, have mercy on me ! " " _, my Gk 1 ! gp ant ne 
patience ! " 

6 Sunday, Sept 13. — This morning he 1 : hi i as i: hi- 
last ho in was i rawing near. About one o'clock a friend 
standing near said. "Thi? is death," supposing that all 
was over. One of the daughters stooped down and kissed 
his forehead. He awoke, and in the confusion of sudden 
waking said, with a little nervous irritation, w Oh! you 
should never wake an invalid! Some time afterwards 



^Et. 76] PROGKESS OF THE DISEASE. 3o9 

he sent for his daughter, and said, " I am afraid I spoke 
petulantly just now, and I am very sorry for it — I beg 
your pardon." If ever the fruits of the Spirit — " gentle- 
ness, patience" — were manifested in any one, they are in 
him. In the afternoon he was rather better. Archdeacon 
West, his domestic chaplain, came out and read prayers 
with him. He said, " Read me the eighth chapter of 
Romans." When Dr. West had finished the chapter, he 
said, " Shall I read any more ? " " No ; that is enough at 
a time. There is a great deal for the mind to dwell on in 
that." He dwelt especially on the thirty-second verse : 
" He that spared not His own Son," &c. In the very last 
sermon which he had preached, he had enlarged on this as 
the conclusive and satisfactory proof that afflictions were 
sent not in anger but in love ; and he now recalled for his 
own comfort the train of thought by which he had so lately 
tried to comfort others. He has had this chapter read to 
him frequently during his illness.' 

On the 14th of September he received the Lord's Supper 
with the Bishop of Killaloe, Archdeacon West, and several 
other friends. At his desire all the servants who wished 
were admitted to join, and all the members of his family 
united with him in the solemn service. It was a scene 
never to be forgotten by any who had witnessed it. A 
calm, earnest attention and solemn peace rested on his 
face ; he spoke little, but evidently the soul was commu- 
ning with God. A little before this, one of the friends in 
attendance on him had remarked that his great mind was 
supporting him ; his answer, most emphatically and ear- 
nestly given, was, ' No ; it is not that which supports me. 
It is faith in Christ ; the life I live is by Christ alone. 
I think these were his exact words. 

Meantime the disease made rapid progress. The state 
of the limb was terrible. The wheeled chair could no 
longer be borne ; and soon even the transport from his 
bed to a sofa became too painful. A distinguished homoeo- 
pathic physician had been summoned from Edinburgh to 
a consultation, and had agreed with the two on the spot that 



360 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. [1863 

nothing* could avail to arrest the progress of the disease, 
and that a few weeks must end it. And none who witnessed 
the constant and intense suffering and weary helplessness 
could dare to wish it prolonged. 

His eldest grandchild, the same whose illness had so 
distressed him years before, was on a visit under his roof. 
He had greatly delighted in seeing her again. But the 
time of her departure was now come, and the last day all 
watched anxiously for a momentary revival, that she 
might receive his last farewell. He had been in a doze 
or stupor most of the day, but just before she left he 
roused sufficiently to have her brought to the side of his 
couch. He was too much overcome with emotion, in his 
weak state, to speak ; but as his feeble hand was guided 
and. placed on her head, his eye turned for the last time 
to the young face before him with an expression of intense 
love and deep solemnity which none who looked on could 
ever forget. 

His countenance had acquired an expression most re- 
markable ; the appearance of extreme age was gone ; a 
beauty of youth, or rather full manhood, seemed to rest 
on it, but the brow had a smoothness and calm which had 
never even in his brightest days been observed there. 
That calm never left it — even through hours of intense 
pain and weakness : it seemed to speak of the peace that 
passeth understanding. Xone who saw it can forget the 
majestic repose of that form, as he lay motionless on the 
low couch on which the water-bed was placed, a fur cloak 
thrown over him. Friends came in continually from 
Dublin or from a distance, and many comparative stran- 
gers to whom he had shown kindness, or who had long- 
venerated his character, would entreat for an interview. 
The room door was open into the adjoining apartment, 
and many would only pass in and give a last look of 
affectionate reverence to one so long loved and honoured, 
without speaking. Often he was sunk in slumbers of 
exhaustion, and could not notice them ; if able to take 
notice, he would show his kindly sense of this feeling 
towards him by a word or look ; and often would express 



Mt. 76] EXTRACTS FROM MR. DICKINSON'S JOURNAL. 361 

warmly the comfort he felt it to be surrounded by so 
many kind friends. 

We again quote from Mr. Dickinson's journal: — 

' Sept. 15 — This morning his son read to him the fourth 
chapter of 2nd Corinthians. He followed the chapter with 
tears and silent prayer, and at the end pronounced an em- 
phatic Amen. Towards evening he said, " This has been 
a terrible day. Oh ! this tenacity of life is a great trial. 
Do pray for my release, if it be God's will." 

'Sept. 16. — After breakfast I read to him Hebrews ii. 
He was much moved, and, when I ended, said with em- 
phasis, " Every chapter in the Bible you read seems as if 
it were written on purpose for me." 

6 Sept. 22. — Amongst other friends, Mrs. Henry Senior 
came out to see him to-day. When she was leaving he 
said, " Give my love to Nassau, and give him, from me, 
my ' Lectures on Prayer.' Ask him, from me, to read the 
second Lecture." 

'Sunday, Sept. 27. — The Archbishop's brother-in-law, 
the Eev. Wm. Pope, read prayers to him to-day. In the 
evening, at eleven o'clock, there was an haemorrhage from 
the leg. A messenger was immediately despatched into 
town for the physician. He lay quite calm and still; 
asking after ten minutes, " Is the bleeding still going on ? 
I hope so." He evidently felt thankful, as believing that 
his release was near. The bleeding had greatly abated 
before the doctor arrived. When he came in he said, " I 
think we can stop it, my lord." The Archbishop answered, 
in his old, natural manner, " I am afraid so." When the 
doctor left, having succeeded in stopping the haemorrhage, 
the Archbishop said to me, " Is not this a very unusual 
hour for the doctor to come ? " I answered, " Yes ; but 
we sent for him expressly when the bleeding began." 
And he replied, ft Oh ! you had not told me of that. Did 
you suppose I was afraid to die ? " 

6 Thursday, Oct. 1. — This morning he listened atten- 



362 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WBATELY. [1863 

tively while several of the Psalms were read to him. He 
was moaning very restlessly in the nigh:, and once, when 
I went to his bedside and asked. "Is there anything you 
wish for. my lord '.' " he answered. ••' I wish for nothing out 
death." 

* Oct. 2. — When I was trying to soothe him to sleep by 
reading aloud an article on ••' Uninspired Prophecy." he 
unexpectedly stopped me when I came to the mention of 
Lord Chesterfield's well-known prediction of the French 
Revolution, and he observed. •'• Oh ! that is not a case in 
point ; that was quite wide of the mark : " and he went 
on minutely to state the particulars of the so-called 
prophec-v. 

■ Oct. 4.— To-day he listened while some of the Psalms 
were read to him. Afterwards, though hardly able to 
articulate — :>bliged. indeed, to spell the words he tried to 
utter — he expressed his wish that some little articles 
belonging to him should be given to two or three of his 
friends.' 

It was the night following this. I think, that another of 
his chanlains was watching beside him. and in making 

suffering and helplessness, quoted the words from Phil, 
iii. 21. -Who shall change our vile body." The Arch- 
bishop interrupted him with the request, • Read the w ;>rds.' 
His attendant read them from the English Bible : but he 
reiterated. "Read his ovra words.' The chaplain, not 
being able to rind the Greek Testament at the moment. 
repeated from memory the literal translation. ■ This 
body of our humiliation.' •' That's right.' interrupted 
the Archbishop, * not vile — nothing that He made is 
vile.' 

The pain now began to diminish, and he lay in a calm 
and scarcely conscious state for the last two or three days 
of his life. 

On the 5th of October, at eleven in the forenoon. Air. 
Dickinson, who was sitting by him. perceived a change 
come over him. He whispered, •' The struggle is nearly 



^t. 76] HIS DEATH. 363 

over now, my lord ; the rest is very near.' He then went 
to call the members of his family, who were all on the 
watch in the next room. They all came in ; and his 
eldest daughter knelt at his side and repeated one or two 
verses of Scripture prayers from the Psalms, which we 
thought he heard and understood. He opened his eyes 
and looked around, but was unable to speak. The pulse 
became each moment weaker and his breathing more 
faint. Again the verses, speaking of the Christian's hope, 
were repeated in the failing ear. 

Mr. Dickinson writes : ' He passed away in perfect 
calm. The physician arrived at his usual hour (^twelve 
o'clock), ten minutes after Dr. Whately had breathed his 
last. We found then that the immediate cause of death had 
been the bursting of an artery in the leg.' 

6 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is 
stayed upon Thee, because he trust eth in Thee.' 

He was buried in the vault of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 
The feeling displayed at his funeral was very deep and 
universal; the Earl of Carlisle, who was so soon to follow 
him, was among those who accompanied his coffin to its 
last resting-place. But the whole scene and the feelings 
which it awakened in those present are best described 
in the following verses by the Very Rev. ^Yilliam Alex- 
ander, Dean of Emly. 

THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Fast falls the October rain. Skies low and leaden 
Stretch where no lustrous spot of blue is isled. 

Some sorrow i3 abroad, the wind to deaden, 
Sad but not loud, monotonous not wild. 

Faster than rain fall tear-drops — bells are tolling ; 

The dark sky suits the melancholy heart ; 
From the church-organs awfully is rolling 

Down the draped fanes the Requiem of Mozart. 



364 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

O tears beyond control of half a nation, 
O sorrowful music, what have ye to say ? 

Why take men up so deep a lamentation ? 

What prince and great man hath there fall'n to-day ? 

Only an old Archbishop, growing whiter 
Year after year, his stature proud and tall 

Palsied and bowed as by his heavy mitre ; 
Only an old Archbishop — that is all ! 

Only the hands that held with feeble shiver 

The marvellous pen — by others outstretched o'er 

The children's heads — are folded now for ever 
In an eternal quiet — nothing more ! 

No martyr he o'er fire and sword victorious, 

No saint in silent rapture kneeling on, 
No mighty orator with voice so glorious, 

That thousands sigh when that sweet sound is gone. 

Yet in Heaven's great Cathedral, peradventure, 
There are crowns rich above the rest with green, 

Places of joy peculiar where they enter, 

Whose fires and swords no eye hath ever seen ; 

They who have known the truth, the truth have spoken, 
With few to understand and few to praise, 

Casting their bread on waters, half heart-broken, 
For men to find it after many days. 

And better far than eloquence — that golden 

And spangled juggler, dear to thoughtless youth — 

The luminous style through which there is beholden 
The honest beauty of the face of Truth ; 

And better than his loftiness of station, 

His power of logic, or his pen of gold, 
The half-unwilling homage of a nation 

Of fierce extremes to one who seem'd so cold, 



LIXES OX HIS DEATH. 365 

The purity by private ends unblotted, 

The love that slowly came with time and tears, 

The honourable age, the life unspotted, 
That is not measured merely by its years. 

And better far than flowers that blow and perish 
Some sunny week, the roots deep-laid in mould 

Of quickening thoughts, which long blue summers cherish, 
Long alter he who planted them is cold. 

Yea, there be saints, who are not like the painted 

And haloed figures fixed upon the pane, 
Not outwardly and visibly ensaintecl. 

But hiding deep the light which they contain. 

The rugged gentleness, the wit whose glory 

Flash'd like a sword because its edge was keen, 

The fine antithesis, the flowing story, 

Beneath such things the sainthood is not seen, 

Till in the hours when the wan hand is lifted 

To take the bread and wine, through all the mist 

Of mortal weariness our eyes are gifted 

To see a quiet radiance caught from Christ ; 

Till from the pillow of the thinker, lying 

In weakness, comes the teaching then best taught, 

That the true crown for any soul in dying 

Is Christ, not genius, and is faith, not thought. 

O Death, for all thy darkness, grand unveiler 
Of lights on lights above Life's shadowy place, 

Just as the mght that makes our small world paler, 
Shows us the star-sown amplitudes of space ! 

O strange discovery, land that knows no bounding, 
Isles far ofThail'd, bright seas without a breath, 

What time the white sail of the soul is rounding 
The misty cape — the promontory Death ! 



3G6 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Eest then. martyr, pass'd through anguish mortal. 

Eest then. O saint, sublimely free ironi doubt, 
Eest then. O patient thinker, o'er the portal. 

Where there is peace for brave hearts wearied out. 

long unrecognised, thy love too loving. 

Too wise thy wisdom, and thy truth too free ! 
As on the teachers after truth are moving 

They may look backward with deep thanks to thee. 

By his dear Master's holiness made holv. 
All lights of hope upon that forehead broad, 

Ye mourning thousands quit the minster slowly. 
And leave the good Archbishop with his God. 



TABLE TALK. 



MISCELLANEOUS REMINISCENCES BY THE EDITOE. 



On different Notions of true Bravery in Civilised 
and Uncivilised, Nations. 

He was remarking once on the difference between the 
standard of military honour in the battles described by 
Homer and Virgil, and that of modern warfare. Homer 
has described Hector, and Virgil Turnus, as retreating 
before an enemy of superior force without the smallest 
idea of disgrace in so doing. A modern soldier would 
consider such conduct as a blot never to be wiped out. 
This view of the subject has been referred to the Scandi- 
navian notions of honour. 'This,' the Archbishop ob- 
served, * is a mistake ; it is not peculiar to northern 
nations ; the idea of disgrace attached to flight in battle 
was quite as firmly maintained by the Spartans. The 
difference is not between the notions and modes of think- 
ing, respectively, of Greeks and of northern nations, but 
between those engaged in disciplined and undisciplined 
warfare. In a regular army, no individual man acts for 
himself : all must follow the directions of the general. No 
one blames a general for retreating before a superior force, 
if he sees good cause for so doing. In undisciplined war- 
fare like that described in the Iliad and iEneid, every 
man was, in fact, his own general, and had, therefore, a 
full right to exercise his discretion in advancing or re- 
treating as he thought most expedient.' 



368 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Mythology. 

' The Greek mythology is far less poetical than the 
Scandinavian. There is a misty gloom about the northern 
traditions far more exciting to the imagination than any- 
thing we find in southern legends. 

' The Hindu mythology is the most unpoetical of all. It 
does not treat of the great, but of the big.' 

Translation. 

6 The best way of learning to write a foreign language 
without the aid of a master, is as follows: Take some 
book by an author of approved style in the language you 
wish to acquire, and translate it very freely into English ; 
put it by for some days, and then put the English back 
into the language from which you translated it, without 
the help of the original ; then correct your foreign version 
by the original.' 

This plan my father followed with Latin, as he con- 
sidered, with great advantage to himself. 

Modifications of Words in Various Languages. 

' The character of a nation will often colour the meaning 
of a word, and the changes the same word passes through 
in several kindred tongues are often curiously illustrative 
of this : for instance, " virtue," meaning a courage " in 
Latin, and " excellence in the arts," or love of them, in 
Italian; " honestus," meaning " honourable" in Latin, 
" civil " or " well-bred " in French, and with us, " morally 
upright." ' 

The Picturesque. 

' The taste for what we specially denominate picturesque 
beauty is a very modern one. The ancients seem to have 
had no notion of it. It appears as if the act of landscape 
painting had in a measure taught it to us. It is rare 
even in our own days to find an uneducated person who 
appreciates what is called romantic scenery. The pleasure, 
on the other hand, of cultivated beauty, arises from asso- 
ciations into which all can enter.' 



TABLE TALK. 369 



Obstinacy. 



'±\. 



Many persons after they have really been defeated in 
an argument, will go back to their first assertions with 
quiet, dull, unreasoning but determined stubbornness ; 
they remind one of a green baize door, which you try in 
vain to keep open, but which shuts again and again with 
a soft, resolute slam.' 

Gentleness. 

' The foundation of a woman's character should always 
be gentleness. That should always be the basis; upon 
that you may superadd other qualifications, as talents, 
liveliness, &c, but if gentleness is not the foundation, the 
whole character is deficient. It is like ice-cream; you 
may flavour it with raspberry, pineapple, vanilla, or what 
you will, but the basis must be cream.' 

Genius. 

Of one man whom he was describing he said, ' He is an 
eccentric genius all but the genius.' This was a favourite 
form of expression with him : he designated another as ' a 
rough diamond all but the diamond. 5 

Wit and Humour. 

6 The real test of humour and wit is to be able to make 
a jest that is neither profane, ill-natured, nor unseemly. In 
avoiding all these rocks, which so many split upon, you 
perform a kind of feat of skill. But nothing is easier, or 
requires less talent, than to make a profane joke.' 

The Unities. 

( It has been a common mistake to suppose that the 
unities of time, place, and action, were derived from the 
practice of the ancient Greeks. The supposition is quite 
gratuitous. In many of the Greek tragedies, unity of time 
and place is entirely disregarded. The mistake seems 
to have arisen from a misapprehension of a passage in 
Aristotle.' 

B B 



370 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Sincerity. 

€ Sincerity is often the last stage of corruption. The 
lowest state to which a man can sink morally, is when his 
conscience is become so utterly depraved that he takes 
evil for good.' 

Conscientiousness as a quiekener of Intellectual Powers. 

6 A very high degree of moral rectitude and uprightness 
of character will make a very moderate amount of intellect 
go very far, in all questions in which right and wrong are 

concerned. ' (an old college friend of his) ' was 

really a stupid man in most matters — weak in judgment 
and slow in perception ; but his thorough-going, straight- 
forward honesty and conscientious singie-mindeclness 
enabled him to see his way through questions which have 
puzzled many men of far superior capacity. A single- 
minded desire to serve Grod has great power in clearing 
the mental perceptions. " If any man will do My will, he 
shall know of the doctrine." 

6 A good portion of strong sense, however, will make a 
moderate share of conscientiousness go further than it 
would alone. I have met with men who had sense enough 
to see the right way, had it been regulated by strong con- 
scientiousness, and conscience enough to have kept them 
right if aided by sound sense ; but having only a moderate 
share of each, their actions showed a want of moral recti- 
tude.' 

The Golden Rule. 

6 How many discourses we meet with on the sufficiency 
of the rule, u Do to others as ye would they should do to 
you," to guide us without any other help. Such persons 
forget that the rule presupposes judgment and moral dis- 
cernment to show us vjhat it is that we should desire 
others to do; for "as ye w^ould" must plainly mean "as 
ye ought to wish," otherwise it would be a rule impossible 
to follow out in all cases. If you were called on, for ex- 
ample, to judge between two contending parties, each 



TABLE TALK. 371 

would of course wish you to decide in his favour, while 
you could not please both. The rule shows you in what 
direction to look; it teaches you to use your judgment 
and sense of right, first to find out what is really fair, just, 
and kind, and then to bring the practical maxim to bear 
on it.' 

Persecution. 

6 There never was a more untrue maxim than the oft- 
quoted one of Sterne — " She had suffered persecution and 
learned mercy." There is no tendency in such sufferings 
to teach mercy and kindness ; quite the contrary. The 
natural effect of harsh and cruel treatment is to make its 
objects harsh and cruel in their turn. No master is so 
severe as one who has formerly been a slave. If you hunt 
down a man like a wild beast, you will make him like 
one in character. The early Christians, and in later times, 
the Waldenses, under persecutions, gave the most con- 
vincing proof of their being really led by divine grace, by 
the fact that their sufferings did not harden or embitter 
them. The history of the Gribeonites is a striking picture 
of the natural effects of long-continued oppression. When 
they are given their choice of what compensation they 
desire, their answer is 5 " Let seven men of Saul's sons be 
given to us and we will hang them." l 

tf The tale of "The Fisherman and the Genie," in the 
" Arabian Nights," is quite a picture of the usual conduct 
of long-oppressed nations. The first hundred years of his - 
captivity the genius offers large rewards to his liberator ; 
but at last he only grants him a choice as to his mode of 
death. An enslaved nation will often, when at last set 
free, take revenge on its liberators.' 

Gratitude and Ingratitude. 

Q There is nothing for which a man finds it so hard to 
forgive another, as for having rendered him a service so 
great as to humiliate him.' 

In illustration, my father used to tell a story of an 

1 2 Sam. xxi. 6. 

B B 2 



372 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. ■ 

officer, who on the occasion of a grand review, where a 
man of high rank and station was in command, saved him 
by his presence of mind and prompt ingenuity from the 
consequences of a blunder he had made in the arrangement 
of the troops. The general thanked him publicly in the 
warmest manner. The officer on returning home immedi- 
ately made arrangements for retrenching his expenses, &c. a 

saying to his friends, ' I am a ruined man ; will never 

forgive me for having saved him from disgrace.' The 
result proved the truth of his predictions. 'It requires 
much greatness of mind, 5 my father would add, ' to for- 
give such a service." 

Sympathy. 

'We sympathise in general with small pleasures and 
with great misfortunes.' 

The Origin of Evil. 

Conversing with some persons who were dwelling on the 
sudden change wrought by the first tasting of the for- 
bidden fruit in Eden, and the perfect holiness as well as 
innocence of our first parents, up to the moment of their 
eating it — ' They speak,' said the Archbishop, ' as if the 
fruit had dropped into the mouth of Eve as she lay 
asleep, without any co-operation on her part: or as if one 
should account for the introduction of small-pox into a 
country previously quite free from it by saying, "At first 
all men were perfectly exempt from any taint of this 
disease; but at last one person suddenly caught it and 
communicated it to the others." The fact was,' he con- 
tinued, c the case of our first parents was analogous to that 
of a man in perfectly good health, but with the seeds of 
mortality in him, and therefore capable of being attacked 
spontaneously by a fever or other disease.' 

Learning with difficulty. 

' In acquiring any art for which you have a natural in- 
capacity, or in conquering any bad habit to which you are 
prone, you must often be content, after long and perse- 



TABLE TALK. 373 

vering endeavours, with being able at last to do tolerably, 
and with great effort, what many others could do well 
without the least trouble.' 

Sorry to Think. 

' I used often to warn a friend,' he said, ' against the 
fallacy of " sorry to think." He would try and persuade 
himself into some opinion, because he would be " sorry to 
think " otherwise. This tendency hinders an honest search 
after truth.' 

Half Jest and half Earnest 

c I had two college friends,' he said, c who were con- 
stantly in the habit of speaking on all subjects in a kind 
of half joke, half earnest. I warned them solemnly of the 
danger of the habit. "Let your jest be jest, and your 
earnest earnest," I said to them ; " by this kind of doubt- 
ful way of speaking, you will gradually weaken your per- 
ceptions of the difference between truth and falsehood." 
They disregarded my advice, and the result in their after 
life proved the truth of my observation.' 

A fortunate Guess. 

' I am not generally quick in guessing,' said my father, 
'but I once made a hit which astonished an old college 
friend. He received in my presence a letter from a friend 
who had a clerical charge in a distant foreign station (I 
forget now whether it was in India or Africa). He opened 
the letter, and immediately a small piece of writing dropped 
out. I said, " Ah ! I see he has sent you a specimen of 
writing by a black girl!" — "What can you mean,Whate]y ?" 
cried he ; but as he read on he presently exclaimed, " You 
are right ! Here he says, ' I send you a specimen of a 
copy written by one of our native school girls.' But how 
could you have guessed it ? " It did seem strange, but it 
was in reality only a very rapid process of reasoning. I 
saw, as the paper fell near me, that it was a large, round, 
child's hand. I thought it must be a specimen of a school 
copy, and that it was not likely he would care to send such 



LlFh OF AECdBISEOI WEAillI. 



~eiv Ft ;. :; t 


uve child, and therefore 


The ouir - 


toss I mil T7as Lit :1: — :i. 


because I a: 


ve generally : mrved that 


-111 11 !L M'c C 


aiokbv than bars.' He be- 


ii : .; serve ;.. r 


nt ■" _:i: is :a__e:: i:tt:tt: 


IrSS 01 111: ! 11 


rmr inn mat me i ers :u 


- _- . ■ 


hi it asked fir his r:-as:u 


n :i : urn i 1 1 


i :m. but tue '■ mini had 


i him. K, v 


bin referred t: Lord Alans- 


— .--' -.-7 . \_-,- 


rill itt : mill as ,:"in ;i 
according to the hest : 


n: wiri a. ea 


• - " - j. * - - _■ - __-,_, 




\T • 



generally bi right : y:ur reasms timr: lertaimy tt;;_,' 

bbiiT::! i :: Bbroisri. 

' Young people are apt to think a man very heroic tti 
delights in danger for its own sake, and courts hardship 
and suffering eagerly. But my idea of a truly heroic 

:bin:iTr is one ~b : mreihrdy avoids danger, hardship. 
it;. mrerirg. where they are unnecessary ; but is re: by :■; 
face all and endure all t ... >:. Pralras :ter 

'. I 1 111 5 S 1 1 111 "0 . 

On hlitr:'::' ■• ■- WiiT'.ossos . : i . / ::'::, 

' The e: unarm prarice :f 'iiF t t;i, :.t:1 bullying 
TriTii-ssrS. bn vrbioii si many trvroites indulge, is i: 
which has the louble effect of frightening an honest wit- 
ness and murium., i dish: nest no. Aptness vrh: has 
been prime:: mill a fahe riry is gererallv prepared to 
meet itt am;nnt :: br :■—":: eating : i: bas miy the erect 

statements. The honest witness, on the other hand, is 

irten ciiite Tirirrorl. an::. mighteued an:: lisooncerted 
by the nieii: :: sham ::ues:i:rs mum a irom him. he 
easily be ripped up and made to contradict himself un- 
consciously. If the object is really to elicit the : 
mode which should be pursued is to maintain a calm 
gentle demeanour in asking :.uesti:rs of the ~it 



TABLE TALK. 375 

This sets the honest at ease and pats the false ones off 
their guard. 

' I had an opportunity/ continued my father, ' of trying 
this experiment myself. A case had to be tried before me 
in which accusations of a very grave nature had been 
brought against an individual who came under my juris- 
diction. The two principal witnesses were two women, 
an old and a young one. The lawyer present questioned 
them in the usual browbeating style. Both persisted in 
their story, which was a very plausible and apparently 
consistent one, and they maintained an imperturbable 
demeanour. The others seemed satisfied with the result 
of the examination : I was not. I said, in a low voice, to 
my secretary, " I think this corn will bear a little more 
threshing," and, just as the young woman was quitting the 
room in triumph, I called her back, and in a gentle quiet 
tone asked her some unimportant enquiry. I proceeded 
in the same calm manner to question her further, but so 
quietly that she was quite put off her guard. Presently 
she made an admission which contradicted something she 
had said before ; I asked another and another question, 
taking care not to show her that my suspicions were 
roused, and gradually she was led on, step by step, to 
unsay every word of her previous story, and to confess 
that she and her companion had been regularly primed 
with the details they had brought forward. It was an 
illustration 'of the old fable of the Wind and the Sun : the 
blustering wind had only made her wrap her cloak closely 
round her, but the gentle warmth of the sun made her 
throw it off.' 

Unequal Combats. 

6 If you fight with a chimney-sweeper, whether you or 
he are the victor, you are equally certain to get smutted.' 

Handwriting. 

c Many people laugh at what is called " graptomancy," 
or the art of judging characters by handwriting; and yet 
all acknowledge that handwriting does indicate something. 



376 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Every one allows a difference between a man's and a 
woman's hand; we constantly hear people speak of a 
vulgar hand, a gentlemanly hand, a clerkly hand, &c. 

6 1 had once/ continued the Archbishop, ' a remarkable 
proof that handwriting is sometimes, at least, an index to 
character. I had a pupil at Oxford whom I liked in most 
respects greatly ; there was but one thing about him which 
seriously dissatisfied me, and that, as I often told him, was 
his handwriting : it was not bad as writing, but it had a 
mean shuffling character in it, which always inspired me 
with a feeling of suspicion. While he remained at Oxford 
I saw nothing to justify this suspicion ; but a transaction 
in which he was afterwards engaged, and in which I saw 
more of his character than I had done before, convinced 
me that the writing had spoken truly. But I knew of a 
much more curious case, in which a celebrated "grapto- 
mancer " was able to judge of character more correctly by 
handwriting than he had been able to do by personal ob- 
servation. He was on a visit at a friend's house, where, 
among other guests, he met a lady whose conversation and 
manners greatly struck him, and for whom he conceived 
a strong friendship, based on the esteem he felt for her as 
a singularly truthful, pure-minded, and single-hearted 
woman. The lady of the house, who knew her real cha- 
racter to be the very reverse of what she seemed, was 
curious to know whether Mr. would be? able to dis- 
cover this by her handwriting. Accordingly, she procured 
a slip of this lady's writing (having ascertained he had never 
seen it) and gave it him one evening as the handwriting 
of a friend of hers whose character she wished him to de- 
cipher. His usual habit, when he undertook to exercise 
this power, was to take a slip of a letter, cut down length- 
wise so as not to show any sentences, to his room at night, 
and to bring it down with his judgment in writing next 
morning, On this occasion, when the party were seated at 
the breakfast-table, the lady whose writing he had un- 
consciously been examining, made some observation which 

particularly struck Mr. as seeming to betoken a very 

noble and truthful character. He expressed his admira- 



TABLE TALK. 377 

tion of her sentiments very warmly, adding at the same 
time to the lady of the house, " Not so, by the way, your 
friend;" and he put into her hand the slip of writing of 
her guest which she had given him the evening before, 
over which he had written the words "Fascinating, false, 
and hollow-hearted." The lady of the house kept the 

secret, and Mr. never knew that the writing on 

which he had pronounced so severe a judgment was that 
of the friend he so greatly admired.' 

Phrenology. 

' I have always regarded it as an argument in favour of 
there being some truth in that system, that the writings of 
its propounders are for the most part so weak that they 
could not possibly have invented it. 5 

Destructiveness. 

6 The propensity called by phrenologists " destructive- 
ness " I believe to be the love of power, or, primarily, the 
love of producing an effect. It manifests itself in children 
by the love of mischief; and often, if active occupations 
are found to give it a right direction, the desire to destroy 
passes away.' 

'But how comes it,' some one remarked in reply, 'that 
this destructivecess or love of power chiefly finds vent in 
injuring or giving pain?' — 'Because,' replied my father, 
6 power is more plainly shown in doing harm to others 
than in doing good. In trying to do good or give 
pleasure, the object of your kindness is, as it were, co- 
operating with you ; he comes half way to meet you and, 
as far as he can, he lends himself to your efforts. If you 
do him harm he resists you, and you have to work against 
him ; as, for instance, if you try to pull another out of a 
ditch, he is working with you ; if you throw him in, he is 
against you, and therefore it is a greater exertion of power. 
Of course we are speaking of destructiveness unchecked 
by benevolence or principle. One who has a large en- 
dowment of both destructiveness and benevolence, is apt 



378 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. 

to do good in a somewhat despotic fashion, and, as we say, 
try i: to make people happy against their will." ' 

Personal Defects. 

• It is often remarked, that the blind are more cheerful 
than the deaf; but we are apt to forget that as the blind 
man is naturally more cheerful in society, and the deaf in 
solitude, so it follows that we see the first in his happiest 
moods, and the last in his most depressed times. 

C A blind man has peculiar temptations to be self- 
absorbed and conceited: his friends and family are ne- 
cessarily much occupied about him, and they are con- 
tinually led to express surprise and admiration at seeing 
him accomplish feats which they are unable to do. A 
blind man, if not uncommonly helpless, can always do 
things which a seeing one would find impossible : and thus 
he may easily be led to think himself something really 
uncommon/ 

Self. 

He was very fond of quoting the speech of Daddie 
Eatton, the ex-thief and turnkey in the ' Heart of Mid- 
Lothian* — 4 Ilka man has a conscience of his own.* He 
often added, ' and every man has a self of his own.* 

' Many/ he would say, ' think themselves free from 
selfishness because they are selfish in a different way from 
other people. The manifestations of selfishness are as 
varied as the characters to which they belong. 

' Self-love is a steady pursuit of what will conduce to 
our welfare and happiness. It is therefore consistent in 
its workings. Selfishness, on the contrary, is often incon- 
sistent with self-love. 

' Its object is the immediate gratification of the passion 
or desire which happens to be uppermost, and which may 
or may not be conducive to our real welfare.' 

Language. 

e A talent for languages and language is not the same. 
Many can pick up foreign languages with ease, and speak 



TABLE TALK. 379 

them fluently, who have little or no interest in, or com- 
prehension of, their structure and peculiarities ; while there 
may be great capacity for philological research, and power 
of entering into the niceties of the grammatical structure 
of a language, without any peculiar readiness in speaking 
or writing it.' 

Words and Ideas. 

'Dr. ' (an old college acquaintance) 'was a first- 
rate Greek scholar as far as mere words went. His know- 
ledge of the language in point of yerbal accuracy was 
remarkable, but he cared nothing for the ideas conveyed 
by' the writers he studied. " What can they find to interest 
them so in Aristotle ? " he would say : " to be sure it is 
very good Greek." It was related of him that once, when 
travelling, he visited an eminent professor, to whom he 
had letters of introduction, at a university. This pro- 
fessor had heard much of Dr. 's learning, and was eager 

to have his opinion on certain points of scholarship. He 
was at first quite disappointed at the want of response in 
his new acquaintance, and was beginning to wonder why 
he had been introduced to him as a great scholar, when, 
in the course of conversation, he happened to use a word 
of which the sense was disputed, or which his companion 
thought incorrect (the conversation was in Latin). " Erras, 
vir doctissim.e," the Oxford scholar began, and in support 
of his view as to the right sense of the word, he poured 
forth such a torrent of illustrations and quotations, that 
the professor was bewildered and astonished at the exten- 
sive information of the man he had been inclined to rate 
so low. "How wonderful/' he afterwards remarked, 
si that a man should be possessed of such abundance of 
words and so few ideas ! " ' 

Printing. 

'Much is said on the importance of the invention of 
printing ; people forget that the idea of making an im- 
pression like a printed letter was no new one ; the ancients 
had the art of making seals, which was substantially the 



380 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

same thing. The real discovery which led to the appli- 
cation of the' art to book-making was the invention of 
cheap paper, and yet no one knows who was the author of 
that invention.' 

Liking, feigned and real. 

' It is curious how much easier it is to deceive grown 
people than children on the subject of their being really 
liked. A designing flatterer can often impose on those 
whom he wishes to please, by a show of regard and friend- 
ship ; but if any one tries to court the notice of a little 
child, to gain the favour of its parents, he will generally 
be repulsed. Children instinctively find out who like 
them : and so do dogs.' 

Dreams. 

' It occurred to me, while still a child, that the condi- 
tion of a brute was like that of a man in a dream ; and 
I believe rny conjecture was correct. In dreams we lose 
the power of abstraction at pleasure. There is a con- 
tinual process of abstract reasoning going on in our minds 
when awake, so rapidly and habitually, that we are not 
conscious of it. For instance : " As I am now in Dublin, I 
cannot also be in London ; such and such a person cannot 
come and converse with me now, because he is absent, or 
dead," &c. It is for want of this unconscious process of 
abstraction that we often dream that some friend is at 
once alive and dead, that we are in two different places, 
or are two different persons, at once, &c. And this seems 
to be the habitual state of a brute.' 

Secrets. 

' Never let any one force a secret on you. If a com- 
munication is made to you, and the person afterwards 
adds, u Now, you won't tell this to any one," the right 
answer should be — "I shall act as I think best."' 



TABLE TALK. 381 

Remarks on 1 Tim. iii. 15, to a Friend who was writing 
a Commentary on the New Testament. 

'It would be as well, perhaps, when speaking of "the 
pillar and ground of the truth," to say that a difference of 
punctuation gives two quite different senses ; and that 
there are, in all, three different senses of the passage (for 
some think, and good scholars too, that it is Timothy 
himself who is the "pillar"), all of which are supported 
by some reasons ; and that therefore it would be rash to 
found any doctrine entirely on so doubtful a passage. All 
this is what no one could deny.' 

The Archbishop himself thought the most probable 
meaning of the three was, that the ' mystery of godliness ' 
was what was meant by the 6 pillar and ground of the 
truth.' 

Expression of feelings that do not exist 

'We generally find that when people express vehe- 
mently and repeatedly their pity, regard, or contempt for 
a person, it is not because they feel these sentiments 
strongly, but because they do not. They wish to feel 
them, and think they ought to feel them, and so make 
exceedingly vehement professions, in order to work them- 
selves into the state of mind they think they ought to 
have. 

6 " I pity such and such a person," is often said in a tone 
which implies more of enmity than pity ; and there is a 
good story of an orator in the House who was stamping, 
roaring, and gesticulating in the most violent excitement, 
and on some one who came in at the moment asking a 
friend what it all meant — " Oh," said the other, " he is 
only treating his adversary with silent contempt ! " 

6 Eeal contempt is shown in a very different way. It 
was expressed very characteristically by Dr. Elmsley, when, 
describing a, visit he had paid to two celebrated literary 
ladies, he added, after a lively picture of their peculiari- 
ties, " and they have some very strong political opinions 
too, which they expect you to agree with, and are in- 



382 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

dignant if you dissent from them. I forget what they 

are!"' 

A Reminiscence of College Life. 

' Dr. ' (a former Provost of Oriel) tf used to bring 

his Hebrew Psalter to chapel in the morning, and appear to 
read the responses in the Psalms from the Hebrew text. 
I suspected that he was not Hebraist enough to read so 
rapidly and fluently as this would imply, and that he was 
in fact repeating them after me — as I was next him : I 
was curious to try the experiment ; and I began to read, 
as I was able to do, very rapidly, without the appearance 
of hurry, so that he could not follow me if he depended 
upon my voice. I found he was completely floored, and 
could not get on. I then stopped, and resumed my usual 
mode of reading, for I did not want to expose the poor old 
man for his little piece of vanity.' 

Punishments. 

* The certainty of a small punishment acts as a far more 
efficacious preventive than the chance of a greater. A 
Dutch burgomaster, whose house was attacked by an in- 
furiated mob, saved his life and dispersed the assailants by 
throwing out some beehives amongst the crowd. If he had 
fired among the mob, the best directed shot could only hit 
one or two, whereas a swarm of enraged bees would spare 
none, and the certainty of a severe sting tried the courage 
of the bravest.' 

Romish Controversy. 

The anecdote of his taking the role of a Eomish priest, 
and speaking in character, so as to puzzle his clergy, has 
been related in his 6 Life.' But the conversation was origi- 
nated in the following way : They were speaking of a 
controversy which had been maintained between a Pro- 
testant clergyman and a Eomish priest, in which, as the 
reporters observed, the victory was doubtful. The Protes- 
tant had had the advantage on some minor points, such as 
the invocation of saints, &c.,. but the priest had been con- 



TABLE TALK. 383 

sidered to be triumphant on the point of the necessity for 
an infallible guide. i Ah ! ' said my father, ' I see how it 

was. Dr. (the Protestant champion) took several 

pawns and was checkmated. The fact is/ he added, ' that 
the Roman Catholics know much more about our religion 
than we do about theirs. I was relating subsequently 
this anecdote to a party of English clergymen, who sneered 
at the failure I had recorded in Ireland I tried the same 
experiment with them, and soon pushed them into a 
corner.' 

Sensation and Perception. 

6 With our bodily senses, sensation is usually in the in- 
verse ratio to perception : that is, the senses in which sen- 
sation is strongest have perception the weakest, and vice 
versa. 

6 In man, sight is the sense in which powers of percep- 
tion are strongest and sensation weakest : in the case of 
smelling, sensation is strongest and perception weakest ; 
with doofs it is the converse. Their scent is their chief 
perceptive power, and if they had our strong sensation of 
various scents it would be intolerable.' 

Evidences. 

After writing the 'Easy Lessons on the Evidences,' 
he said to my mother, ' I have left out what is perhaps 
the strongest evidence of all, i.e. the character of our 
Lord. If that was not divine, I do not know what could 
be.' 

A right Conclusion. 

c When a person comes to a right conclusion, that does 
not prove that he was right in coming to it. You may 
conclude that the moon is inhabited, and I may take the 
contrary view; one of us must be right, but neither of us 
can be said to be right in holding an opinion at which we 
could not arrive by reasoning.' 



384 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Of highest Virtues. 

He was fond of quoting Bacon's axiom : ' lufimarum 
virtutum apud vulgus laus est, mediarum admiratio, 
supremarum sensus nullus.' ' It is curious,' he observed, 
bow the "lower" or "middle" virtues interfere with the 
" supreme." Feelings of good nature or affection lead a 
man to prefer his relations or friends for public posts, even 
though unfit for them, and thus interfere with that im- 
partiality which may be reckoned as among the "highest 
virtues." Not only have the mass of mankind no percep- 
tion of these, but they rather blame a man for them, for 
the reason already given: viz. that they interfere with those 
with which they can sympathise.' 

Bad Writing. 

' People view the same thing according to their peculiar 
cast of mind. Bishop Copleston always observed that to 
write an illegible hand was ec arrogant," because it de- 
manded time and labour to decipher it. I, for the same 
reason, remarked that it was " selfish." ' 

Jests. 

6 There are some people whose wisdom is a jest, and 
whose jests are wisdom.' 

Being in advance of the Age. 

' To be more enlightened than your age is to endure a 
misery akin to that so comically described in " The 
Miseries of Human Life ; " i.e. getting up too early, and 
coming downstairs to find everything in disorder — fire 
unlighted, rooms unswept, &c.' 

Description of Character. 

6 — — would have been a knave,' the Archbishop re- 
marked, ' if Nature had not made him a fool.' 



TABLE TALK. 385 

A Blackguard. 

' For a man to be such, he must by education and birth 
be capable of better manners and pursuits than those he 
follows. You do not call a clown a blackguard for having 
coarse manners.' 



REMINISCENCES BY HIS SON, THE EEV. EDWARD WHATELY, 
RECTOR OE ST. WERBURGH'S, DUBLIN. 



I. PUNS, WITTICISMS, AND ANECDOTES. 

My father was not much addicted to the practice of 
making puns, but those he made were generally good and 
appropriate. 

On one occasion he was speaking of a celebrated authoress 
who had been recommended by Mr. Hume to give up 
writing ; he observed, that in the event of her declining 
(as she eventually did) to follow his advice, the line of 
Horace might be applied to her — 

Spernit Humum fugiente penna. 

Though extremely fond of a joke, his principle was 
never to state, even in jest, anything really untrue, except 
on the privileged 1st of April; and even then he main- 
tained that the only fair ' April fool ' jests were when their 
object was taken off his guard and made to believe some- 
thing really absurd. I remember his practising this with 
great effect on one occasion when the monthly Association 
dinner happened to occur on the day in question. He 
had been mentioning in the course of conversation a 
scheme which had really been laid before him by a certain 
fanciful projector, for constructing a machine for enabling 
men to fly. In the midst of the remarks which this called 
forth, he suddenly glanced at the window (it was daylight, 
as the hour for these dinners was never later than five), 

c c 



386 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

and exclaimed, i And there tie is, flying across the green ! ' 
The whole party was so completely taken by surprise, that 
all rushed simultaneously to the window to look at the 
phenomenon. 

The editor remembers a similar trial of his hearers' 
credulity, on another 1st of April morning, when the 
family were preparing for a journey to England, and were 
startled by his gravely informing them he had just heard 
that a large lump of oxygen in the boiler would prevent 
the packet from sailing I 

But these were not the jokes in which he most com- 
monly indulged. As has been observed earlier, his witti- 
cisms were almost always the medium of inculcating some 
truth or illustrating some general principle. In the words 
of Dean Alexander, his wit flashed like a sword because 
its edge, keen and brilliant, cut through the subject which 
it illustrated. Although possessed of a lively and ready 
appreciation of humour, and very fond of retailing humour- 
ous anecdotes and sayings, wit was nevertheless far more 
characteristic of his mind than humour. His wit consisted, 
in great measure, in apt, and at the same time quaint and 
fantastic illustrations, used to enforce or elucidate some 
leading principle. 

For instance, I was once citing the example of a man 
of generally high character, in defence of some question- 
able action or habit ; he replied, c If you make a collection 
of the worst traits of the best men for imitation, you will 
have a nosegay of nettles.' 

Again, a celebrated medical man (now deceased) was 
speaking of the phenomena of phreno-mesmerism, and 
observing that its advocates, in trying to prove the truth 
of mesmerism by phrenology, and phrenology in its turn 
by mesmerism, were in fact arguing in a circle. The 
Archbishop answered, that he did not think the argument 
was open to such a charge. ' If,' he continued, ' I were to 
shoot you through the head with a pistol, that would 
prove at once that the pistol is a destructive instrument, 
and that your head is vulnerable. And yet,' he proceeded 
to observe, 'the vulnerability of the head, and the de- 



TABLE TALK. 387 

structiveness of the pistol, would be reciprocally proved, 
each by the other.' 

He afterwards remarked, when alluding to the conver- 
sation, ' If I had defended the argument attacked in logical 
language, and showed its conformity with the rules of 
logic, a hearer unacquainted with the science would not 
have understood me. A familiar illustration can be com- 
prehended by all, and makes the subject equally clear.' 

The Archbishop often reverted to the common but 
fallacious remark, ' Such a thing is very well in theory, 
but will not do in practice.' If it really fails in practice, 
it shows the theory must have been wrong in some point. 
He used to illustrate the real absurdity of such an expres- 
sion by a ludicrous anecdote which he had brought forward 
in the Oriel common room, on the occasion of some one 
present stigmatising an opinion which had been broached 
as 6 very well in theory but not fit for practice.' It was in 
answer to this objection that he related an incident which 
occurred during a mathematical lecture of one of the Oriel 
tutors. The teacher was explaining to a pupil the demon- 
stration of that problem in Euclid which has been popu- 
larly nicknamed ' the windmill,' and as he patiently went 
through the process step by step, the pupil dutifully 
acquiesced as he went on — 6 Yes, sir ; yes, I see ; very clear.' 
But just as the problem was completed, the tutor was 
dismayed by his adding, ' but it is not really so, is it, sir ? ' 
When the laugh which followed this story had subsided, 
my father added, ' You see this was a man who thought 
a thing might be very well in theory but would not do in 
practice.' 

Another illustration was a favourite one with him, 
apropos of the common though foolish practice of appoint- 
ing a person to an office in some department because he 
has attained eminence in a totally different line, as, for 
example, when the celebrated novel writer, Fanny Burney, 
was appointed personal attendant on Queen Charlotte. 
When quoting Macaulay's remark (in his review of her 
memoir) to the effect that though no other woman living 
might be able to write as Miss Burney did, plenty could 

c c 2 



388 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. 

have been found better qualified to attend to the Queen's 
toilette, he used to observe, f it was just analogous to the 
ancient custom of serving up a pie of nightingale's tongues 
as a special delicacy, as if the melody of the bird's voice 
must constitute them a greater dainty.' 

II. REMARKS ON VARIETIES OF CHARACTER, ETC. 

Speaking of a man of first-rate abilities being compelled 
to perform some drudgery for which an inferior person 
was better qualified, he said, c Such a waste of power is 
like fishing with a golden hook when a common steel one 
would do the work better.' 

Alluding to a friend of his who systematically en- 
deavoured to depress the hopeful expectations and lower 
the self-esteem of all whom he addressed, he said, 'He is 
like the famous Dr^ Sangrado in u Gril Bias," he thinks 
bleeding and depletory measures necessary for every 
patient ! ' 

6 Is he, then,' I asked, ' himself very sanguine ? ' 

He then made me consider whether this mode of pro- 
cedure did not rather proceed from an opposite tendency 
of mind — a deficiency of hopefulness. His friend was ready 
to administer a cordial when himself convinced there was 
real need of it. 

6 Some people,' he would say, ' think that because they 
have discovered that a man is not all he professed or ap- 
peared to be, that he is therefore totally without merit : 
whereas the truth may lie between the two extremes — 

Silver gilt will often pass 
Either for gold or else for brass.' 

Of Selfishness. 

' Selfish people generally get all they want, except 
happiness. Of this last point, it may be said, "seek and 

ye shall not find." If ' (mentioning a lady of his 

acquaintance) ' could get any good out of ' (her sister- 
in-law) ' by broiling and eating her, she would do it ; but 



TABLE TALK. 389 

she cannot make herself as happy as , because one is 

selfish and the other unselfish.' 

Via Media. 

6 Many people think that the real "just mean" con- 
sists in halting between the premises and the conclusion. 5 

Characters. 

Of one friend he remarked to me, ' He sometimes speaks 
lightly of actions he really views with abhorrence, from 
his intense dread and dislike of humbug. I have some- 
times told him that he might bring an action against 
himself for defamation of character.' 

Of a very promising young man, who has since joined 
the Church of Rome, he observed, c His mind is too luxu- 
riant. If you could lop off some of his superabundant 
crop of ideas, and give them to a plain, dull, common- 
place man, both would be benefited. The common popu- 
lar rule for a young writer — " If a very bright idea occurs 
to you in your composition, strike it out " — would really 
be useful in his case. Eeading for a Fellowship, or some 
kind of mental plodding work, would do him great good.' 

Of those ivho seem better than they are. 

6 It is a common mistake to suppose that one who is not 
a vjhitedj sepulchre is not a sepulchre at all — that if a man 
has faults at top, therefore he has none at bottom. This 

is quite a fallacy. , for instance, is as full of " dead 

men's bones " as if he were a whited sepulchre.' 

Of another acquaintance he remarked, 'He is like a 
child who hides its head and 'says, a You can't see me I " 
But when he does open his mind, it is in a peculiar way : 
" Apparent clausse fores et longa patescunt atria." : 

I was observing to him once, that those who have 
studied mankind theoretically and philosophically seldom 
deal personally with others with as much tact arid discern- 
ment as is often displayed by mere men of the world who 
make no attempts at philosophising. 



390 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. 

' Yes/ he replied; ' and probably if these last were asked 
why they adopted some particular line of conduct, they 
would not be able to give their reasons, though their 
actions might be right and judicious.' 

Of Curiosity or Inquisitiveness. 

6 1 have generally found,' he observed, c that inquisitive- 
ness — curiosity about trifles — exists in the inverse ratio to 
a real thirst for the acquisition of knowledge. For 
example, what is the difference between the turn of mind 
which leads a great historian to enquire into some im- 
portant question of antiquarian research, and that which 
leads a woman to pry into her neighbours' concerns? 
The one arises from the desire of knowledge for the sake 
of its own intrinsic importance, the other is simply the 
wish to discover what is hidden. 

' There are questions in biography and history, how- 
ever,' he observed, ' which, being of no practical interest 
or importance, rather excite the spirit of inquisitiveness, 
or desire to find out what is hidden, than any rational 
curiosity: such, for example, as the real authorship of 
Junius' Letters.' 

Of Rights. 

'Some people will submit patiently to having their rights 
trampled on; but if once you acknowledge that they have 
any rights of their own, they will uphold them resolutely.' 

Remarks on Men and Manners. 

Of an eminent public character he remarked, ' He uses 
his talents as a child would use Fortunatus' purse, or any 
other of the gifts of beneficent fairies we read of in chil- 
dren's tales. He uses them to make a great display and 
create a sensation.' 

Of the same person he said, ' He is undoubtedly the 
most amusing speaker in the House ; but he carries no 
weight, because everyone sees that his only object is to 
make a brilliant speech. Never was there such a wreck 



TABLE TALK. 391 

on the shoals of vanity as that man is. He has lost all 
his influence through it.' 

Of another public speaker he said, ' There is no man in 

the House I would not rather encounter than . He 

seems to be merely uttering plain common sense matters 
in a clear and simple and even homely manner, but he 
carries conviction ; and the more so because he often ad- 
vocates fallacies, which, hoivever, he seems honestly to 
believe.' 

To the same man he used to apply the remark which 
Tacitus applied to the Grauls — 'Eadem in deposcendis 
periculis audacia, eadem in detractandis formido.' 

In reference to Bishop 's conduct with regard to 

his clergy, who had taken a strong part in the Tractarian 
movement, he used to quote Falstaff's words, ' I have sent 
my tatterdermalions where they have been well peppered.' 
However, he always gave full credit to the person in 
question for activity and energy. 6 He lives while he does 
live,' he remarked. 

Of some men he used to say, that their conduct could 
only be explained by supposing them to have two sides to 
their heads — intellectually and morally — and that they 
sometimes acted from one side and sometimes from the 
other. Thus, he would say of one, 6 He is half a knave and 
half a fool, and you do not know which side of his cha- 
racter will manifest itself on any given occasion.' He was 
sometimes, I think, mistaken as to the individual, though 
probably not as to the principle. 

In allusion to a remark some one made in his presence 
to this effect, 'I see many clever boys, but where are the 
clever men ? ' he replied, * The fact is, there are clever 
men as well as clever boys, but they are a different class. 
A boy Avho is reckoned clever at school is generally one 
who possesses merely a certain kind of quickness, which 
he retains through life, but which does not tell so much 
in the world as it did at school. The boy who afterwards 
turns out a remarkable man, is often one regarded at school 
as an odd fellow, whom an ordinary observer would think 
nothing of.' 



392 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. 

He was always very quick in discerning early promise 
of real powers of mind, and in distinguishing in young- 
people between mere precocity of intellect and those 
early marks from which future excellence may be pre- 
dicted. ' It requires some discrimination.' he remarked, 
' to distinguish between a young tree and a shrub.' 

He often related an instance in point which took place 
during his college life. A youth of about eighteen called 
upon him one day with a letter of introduction. My 
father was so pleased with kini, that he asked him to stay 
and spend the evening, and afterwards remarked that he was 
the most remarkable youth he had ever met, with all the 
self-possession and maturity of a middle aged man. When 
asked, in reply, if he did not think he would turn out 
something extraordinary, he answered, 6 Xo ; he is too 
much formed in character to warrant any great expecta- 
tions of future growth. A more undeveloped mind might 
offer greater promise for the future. I met the same man,' 
my father adds, 'some twenty years later. He was the 
same sensible, intelligent man he had been at eighteen, 
but nothing more.' 

Of another early acquaintance he observed, that ' he re- 
mained all his life a very clever boy, but never reached 
maturity. In the first case, there was a perpetual autumn ; 
in the last, a perpetual spring.' 

On Tolerance and Intolerance. 

Though inclined to do somewhat less than justice to 
authors whose minds were uncongenial, or whose books 
were distasteful to him, this kind of unconscious intoler- 
ance did not, with a few exceptions, extend to those 
studies in which he was, or thought himself, deficient. 
He always rated such studies at their full value, without 
imaoinino; himself to excel in them. For instance, he 
considered himself to have no head for history (possibly 
he underrated himself in this respect), but this did not 
lead him to underrate the value of such studies. When 
Dr. Arnold remarked to him, ' Every one must have his 
tastes : mine is for investigation of facts, yours for abstract 



TABLE TALK. 393 

reasoning.' ' Yes, he replied, 'but facts will not supply 
the place of reasoning ; nor should I, on my side, ever 
dream of supposing that reasoning would take the place 
of facts, and stand without them.' He used to speak of 
Dr. Arnold as a remarkable instance of one possessed of 
the power of generalising, and always ready to do so, in 
order to establish a fact ; but disliking the operation, and 
turning with pleasure from the abstract to the concrete. 

Pride. 

The Archbishop admitted that a certain degree of pride 
might restrain the possessor of it from committing mean 
actions ; but he had remarked, he added, that the 'proudest 
people would often do the meanest things, because they 
esteemed others as mere worms in comparison with them- 
selves, and also because the mere fact of their being the 
doers of an action was sufficient to exalt it in their eyes. 

Vanity. 

A friend of my father's was apprehensive respecting his 
eldest son, lest he should grow up too fond of praise ; and 
accordingly adopted a somewhat depressing and severe 
mode of treatment. My father objected to this on the 
following grounds : ' If,' he said, ' you could make him 
less eager for praise or admiration, it would be well to do 
so ; but, as it is, by denying it to him at home, you only 
lead him to seek it abroad, and that in quarters where he 
will get it of an inferior kind, and without the safeguards 
you can provide for him. It is best to give it him your- 
self in moderation, and thus you win his confidence.' 

The father acknowledged the justice of the remark, and 
acted on the advice given. 

Education. 

'If you want to know how to train children, ask a 
gamekeeper how he trains his dogs, and you will gain 
many good suggestions. Do not ask the same man how 
he trains his children, for ten to one he will act with them 
on a totally opposite plan.' 



394 LIFE OF ASCHBISHOP WHATELT. 

My father thought it very important for parents to allow 
their children to 'talk nonsense' to them: viz. to speak 
freely what was in their minds. He quoted, as an instance 
of the contrary course, a rebuke which a schoolmaster 
i whom he nevertheless truly loved and venerated) made 

liirn before the whole school. On his asking some ques- 
tion in the course of the lesson, his master had exclaimed. 
•' Xow. Whately, what could moke you ask such a ques- 
tion ? * 'Of course.' continued my father. 'I resolved I 
would never again expose myself to the risk of a similar 
Jisgrace. And thus a spirit of intelligent enquiry was 
stopped.' 

Co 1 1 eg e Te a c h i ng. 

Of his general views of education it would be superflu- 
ous to speak, as they will be found in his printed works. 
But it may not be wholly out of place to make some re- 
marks respecting his mode of teaching particular branches. 
Of his style of teaching at Oxford I cannot speak, of course. 
from personal experience, and the mode of preparing for 
examinations had greatly changed when I came to Oxford 
— the ; cramming' system being greatly in vogue: a sys- 
tem of which he would have been the first to disapprove ; 
while Aristotle was taught through the medium of a multi- 
tude of not^s handed down, like the Jewish traditions. 
from teacher to teacher. His teaching I believe to have 
been far above the ordinary standard of examinations : 
but its excellence was not of a kind to be generally 
appreciated there, and an inferior tutor would probably 
have succeeded better in pushing a pupil into a first class. 
My father thought more of his pupils' mental develop- 
ment than of the class he was likely to obtain. 

The plan he adopted in teaching Aristotle was this : he 
wrote questions on the matter of each chapter before the 
pupil read it ; and,, when he had puzzled out the answer 
as well as he could 3 he found the difficulty solved by read- 
ing the chapter : a method which enabled him much better 
to digest the substance of each chapter and to remember 
it accurately, than if merely 'got up 3 like a mere task. 



TABLE TALK. 395 

arid learned by rote. It was in accordance with his general 
plan in teaching, which was to puzzle his pupils in order 
to make them think for themselves. He often said that 
other tutors, who thought they were wiser than he was, 
used to expostulate with him, and repeat the complaints 
of the pupils that he ' puzzled ' them, which, as he always 
replied, was exactly the result at which he aimed. 

I have observed that he w^as not, perhaps, the best man 
to push a pupil into a first class. But it must not be in- 
ferred from this that he undervalued the importance of 
going through the drudgery of elementary work with a 
beginner — quite the contrary. I remember his relating 
the case of a friend who came to college very ignorant of 
the classics, and whose difficulties had been increased by 
the circumstance of having been made to study writers too 
advanced for a beginner. My father took him in hand; 
went patiently with him through the simplest schoolboy 
drudgery; and at last, through the tutor's perseverance 
and the pupil's diligence, a second class was the result. 
Whereas, before he had placed himself under my father's 
tuition, he had been, in spite of all his labour, on the high 
road to a ' pluck.' 

The conduct of my father on this occasion was quite of 
a piece with his general unselfish desire to serve his fellow- 
creatures, without regard to any credit or reputation he 
might himself gain : a disposition of mind which might 
well dispose the world to look with indulgence on his ex- 
ternal roughness of manner and want of attention to the 
minor courtesies of life. 

In one point respecting the training of youth he was, 
I think, led into error : he was inclined to overrate the 
general power of understanding possessed by young persons 
of average capacity, and would introduce them to studies 
which their minds could not yet grasp. His 6 Easy Lessons 
on Reasoning ' were an example of this ; as he had origi- 
nally intended them for the perusal of readers who would, 
generally speaking, be too young to comprehend either 
the spirit or the manner in which it was treated. 

He was tolerant of ignorance where he thought it arose 



396 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. 

from want of opportunities of learning ; of dulness be was 
tolerant in principle, though not always in practice, 
However, his impatience of slowness or stupidity was 
manifested more in conversation than in teaching. With 
a slow pupil, if attentive, he could be exceedingly patient 
and persevering, but anything of inattention or apparent 
carelessness tried his patience greatly. And with young 
people he did not always distinguish between the failures 
in memory or in comprehension which arise from nervous- 
ness or timidity, and those which are the result of real 
indifference to instruction or habitual neglect. 

He was not, like some tutors, disposed to urge a pupil 
to over-read himself. I recollect his mentioning that on 
the occasion of a young friend being obliged to suspend 
his college course in order to pass a winter, on account of 
his health, with his family in the West Indies, ray father 
gave him some advice with regard to his studies, so re- 
markable for moderation, that his friend should have felt 
himself the more bound to follow it. The young student 
was really prepared for his examination, and would pro- 
bably have taken a second class, could he have passed it at 
once. My father's advice to him was, not to attempt hard 
reading during his West Indian visit. 'You will find 
this impossible,* he said, ( in the midst of the distractions 
consequent on a visit home, and the social engagements 
which will multiply on you. Be contented, therefore, 
with resolving to keep up your present knowledge, by 
reading at least ten lines of some classic writer every day ; 
and do not let any of your new occupations make you 
swerve from that determination. Keep steadily to a little — 
if you can do more, well and good ; but let ten lines a day 
be your minimum. If you begin by attempting too much. 
you may fail of all." His friend thought such an attempt 
too contemptible and small, he despised such little efforts, 
and was sure he should read six or eight hours a day. 
My father, to the last, recommended him to bind himself 
to a small daily task, and anything he could accomplish 
beyond it would be so much clear gain. But his advice 
was disregarded : the voting traveller set out with the 



TABLE TALK. 397 

vague intention of reading very hard ; on bis arrival, his 
good resolutions were overcome by the variety of attrac- 
tive invitations that poured upon him; the reading was 
deferred from day to day, and at last wholly forgotten. 
He returned to Oxford without having read a line of the 
classics, found on resuming his studies he had lost all he 
had acquired, and only succeeded in getting through his 
degree without taking any honours. 

My father used to call himself a first-rate mathematical 
teacher, though only a second-rate mathematician ; and he 
considered that he was the better able to teach it, from 
his slowness in learning it. Those who learn quickly are 
generally unable to appreciate the difficulties of ordinary 
learners, and therefore are less able to explain and remove 
them. In my time, and in his time also, it was custom- 
ary for a student at Oxford to take up either logic or 
Euclid for his first public examination, or 6 little go,' as it 
was called. He said he never knew a man who took up 
logic for this examination whose college career turned out 
successful, intellectually speaking ; because at that early 
period of his course he could not really master the science 
of logic, but he could get up the mere technical rules by 
rote, and consequently could never learn to apply his mind 
to abstract reasoning. With Euclid it is next to impos- 
sible to acquire the propositions by heart without under- 
standing them, and the young student is thus forced to 
exert his powers. There may be exceptions to this rule, 
but he observed that, generally speaking, the neglect of 
early mathematical study left a gap in the mind never 
really filled up. 

On Style. 

' Do not ' he said to a student whom he was instructing: 
in the best method of acquiring a good style, < spend too 
much time on any one composition, or you will make it 
stiff and over-laboured. Translate every day a page or 
two of some Latin writer, Cicero for example, as care- 
fully as possible : this will give you exactness. But write 
also something of your own, putting down the thoughts 



398 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

as they occur to you, without bestowing much care on the 
wording. This will give you ease and freedom of style.' 

' The art of packing up ideas into a small compass is 
like the art of packing a trunk. An inexperienced packer 
will cram and push things in, and not succeed in getting 
half the articles he wants into the trunk, or in making 
them lie evenly and fit close, whereas a skilful hand will 
effect his purpose without any squeezing or thrusting, and 
get in twice the quanthVy. So with composition. The 
style which is really most concise does not always appear 
so. But let any one, when studying a very condensed 
writer, try the experiment of expressing the same ideas in 
as few words, and he will perceive the style to be con- 
densed, from his inability to imitate it.' 

Sandford and Merton. 

€ The principles of this book misled me when I was a 
boy : they made a democrat of me. But they had this good 
effect — that they instilled into .me a hatred of being de- 
pendent on others, and desirous of gaining my own liveli- 
hood by my own exertions. Whether a man's exertions be 
intellectual or manual, he is independent if he maintains 
himself. This hatred of dependence followed me to man- 
hood and stimulated me to exertion. I have sometimes,' 
he would add, ' set all the chairs with their backs to the 
wail, for fear I should drop asleep on them while I was 
reading.' 

Examinations at College. 

He thought that the same plan should be adopted with 
regard to examinations for a degree, which he himself always 
carried out in examinations for orders : namely, a private 
examination of the candidates previously, held by those 
who were competent to decide whether the examinee was 
fit for a public trial or should be remanded to his studies ; 
so that none should be brought to the public examination 
unless really fit, the public examiners at the same time 
retaining the power of rejecting, which in that case would 
be but rarely used. I remarked, that it might be objected 



TABLE TALK. 399 

that a ' pluck,' or ' caution,' as it is called in Trinity Col- 
lege, Dublin, would give a man a useful stimulus. Q It is 
much more likely,' he said, ' to break a man's heart.' 

w With regard to the degree of M.A.,' he remarked, c the 
examination for it which used to be held has become ob- 
solete, because the examiners do not like to subject men 
of a certain standing to risk the disgrace of a rejection. 
The best course would be to choose out the most decidedly 
superior from the rest ; for, after all, the degree of M.A. 
is a luxury, not a necessity.' 

Of Ancestry. 

' You will often find that people are proud of their de- 
scent from a notorious malefactor, whom they would have 
been ashamed to have for their father. I knew,' he would 
add, ( a family of sisters who traced their descent from 
Bradshaw the regicide. They were thorough-going Con- 
servatives, and often expressed horror of the crime of their 
ancestor; but I suspected all along that, could it have 
been proved that they were mistaken in their genealogy, 
and in reality descended from some obscure individual, 
they would have been greatly disappointed.' 

Of Outivard Show. 

Of a certain prelate he remarked, that his love of out- 
ward show and keeping up the dignity of his profession 
arose from want of confidence in himself. He entrenched 
himself behind these outward forms as in a fortress. 

Of ' Faint Praise.' 

The best way of cutting up a work is to give faint and 
measured praise at first. Of some person who attacked 
him in this way, in the House of Lords, he said he re- 
minded him of the boa-constrictor, who licks his victim 
over before he swallows him. 

He said, in speaking of an attack on his writings in 
print, 'I could have done it much better; I would have 
begun with patronising and a contemptuous kind of praise ; 
remarking, " so and so is not very original, certainly, but 
it is well expressed," &c. &c.' 



400 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Style in Conversation. 

The use of hyperbolic expressions he used to call a sort 
of dram drinking ; it was a habit that grew on people by 
use. c Young ladies/ he would say, f are apt from care- 
lessness and dislike of analysing their own impressions, to 
use the most exaggerated epithets on the most trivial 
occasions, and thus their language was rendered feeble by 
everything being emphasised, and all lights and shades of 
description omitted.' 

Language. 

' It is remarkable how an acute man may be blinded by 
national prejudice. Cicero speaks of the copiousness of 
the Latin language, and yet, as a great master of that 
language, he should have known that in many cases where 
he has used exactly the right expression, he has in reality 
taken the only words in the language which could have 
properly expressed the particular idea he wished to con- 
vey. But his diction is so happy, that in reading his 
works you would not perceive the want of copiousness of 
the language.' 

On Sermons. 

He had no disapprobation of extempore preaching in 
itself, provided a man was able to do it really well, and 
he was ready to acknowledge the advantages which such a 
mode of preaching, if good of its kind, might possess over 
written sermons. But he did not like to encourage it, 
because he thought that, as a general rule, less sound 
sense was to be found in extempore than in written ser- 
mons. ' Therefore, 5 he said, ' though I myself could preach 
extempore, I abstain from it because my example would 
probably lead others to attempt it who did not possess the 
necessary qualifications, and who would therefore only 
make their attempts ridiculous. When called on to give 
a lecture at the meetings of any society, as the Zoological, 
&c.,. I purposely bring nothing but notes with me, to show 
that it is not from incapability, but on principle, that I 
refrain from extempore preaching. 



TABLE TALK. 401 

' At all events,' he used to add, * if a raan does preach 
extempore, he should have a store of written sermons in 
his possession laid up against the time when his powers 
may fail. I once heard an old clergyman preach ex- 
tempore, who, I was told, had been, in his day, a man of 
considerable talent and eloquence. The sermon I heard 
from him was absolute twaddle.' In describing some 
extempore preachers, he said, ' You might quote Bottom's 
answer to Snug the joiner, in " Midsummer Night's 
Dream," when Snug asks him if the lion's part in the 
play was written ? 4i You may do it extempore, for it is 
nothing but roaring ! " ' 

He greatly disapproved of such addresses in a sermon 
as ' To such persons I would give a few words of advice.' 
He thought it was likely to prevent the exhortation leaving 
any real effect. 

His criticism on the sermon a friend had given him to 
read, containing a good deal of matter, but unconnectedly 
stated, was — 'What that sermon requires, is to have been 
boiled in a bag,' alluding to the story (given in the ' Com- 
monplace Book ') of the French cook, who followed a 
receipt very correctly in the composition of an English 
plum-pudding, but not having been told of the manner 
in which it should be boiled, served it up in a soup 
tureen ! 

The editor remembers a criticism of a similar kind on 
a sermon full of interesting and valuable thoughts, but 
delivered in a dry and unattractive manner. ' It is very 
good soup,' he said, ' but served up cold.' 

He was very particular in urging divinity students to 
write skeletons of sermons. Of one of the most distin- 
guished of his old pupils, whom he had early trained in 
the habit, he remarked, ' whether you agree with him or 
not, he always says something when he preaches.' 

He spoke often of the importance of leaving one side of 
every page blank in writing a sermon or essay. He said : 
' It is well worth the expenditure of paper. I have known 
the adoption of this plan lead to an alteration of a writer's 

D D 



402 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

style, much for the better. Before writing your sermon. 
look at your text with a microscope.* 

Titles. 

; The book, among my published works, which sold the 
worst, was a volume of sermons. People do not usually 
buy sermons unless they are of a kind adapted for reading 
in an evening at family worship. 

• An old college friend.* he added, ' once published a 
volume of sermons. I told him I thought they would sell, 
for they were just the kind of thing clergymen would buy 
in order to preach. " Oh ! " said my friend. " I would not 
wish them to be put to such a use ! n ~ You will find, 
however." I replied. u that they will be." The result veri- 
fied the prediction, for a few months afterwards my friend 
had a letter to the effect that the writer had preached 
through the contents of the first volume, and wished to 
know when he would publish another ; the fact being, 
that the sermons had the kind of dull, safe mediocrity of 
character which exactly fitted them for a man too indolent 
to write for himself." 

Advice to newly-ordained Clergymen. 

He used often to give a few words of counsel to all the 
candidates when holding an ordination. He always urged 
strongly on them the importance of frequently visiting 
their parishioners. * When I had a country parish.* he 
said. ' I was composing my sermon, or gathering materials 
for it, while conversing with those I visited. When you 
visit the poor, show them that you take a kindly interest 
in their worldly concerns. Do not. when you see them 
anxious and troubled about some such matters, immedi- 
ately press upon them such texts as K Labour not for the 
meat that perisheth : " our Saviour did not say this to His 
disciples till after He had provided for their bodily wants. 

6 Sometimes.* he would add. ' when you cannot persuade 
a man of a truth, or disabuse him of an error by direct 
argument, you may effect your purpose by meeting him 
on another point., like cleaving a block in a different 



TABLE TALK. 403 

direction. For instance, I have sometimes found persons 
who seemed to me to feel perfectly secure of going to 
heaven, without any real or sufficient grounds, and whose 
false confidence could only be shaken by being made to 
look at the question from a different point of view, and 
consider whether they were fitting themselves for the 
enjoyment of the abode to which they felt so certain of 
going.' 

Of Praise from a Parishioner. 

' Xever take any praise from a member of your congre- 
gation with regard to a sermon, for it is in fact a liberty 
for anyone to praise you who is not in the position of a 
companion and equal. When I praise a sermon I consider 
myself as taking the privilege of one holding a superior 
position. And remember, also, that " those who have a 
right to clap have a right to hiss." ' 

Of Repetition in an Author. 

My father often introduced into later publications the 
same matter he had already given in earlier ones, altering 
the form, or at least the wording, a little, of the remarks. 
In so doing he compared himself to a renowned French 
cook, who, on finding his master had not liked some dish 
on which he had prided himself, exclaimed, 6 Milord does 
not know what is good ! By gar, he shall eat it ! I will 
make him.' And accordingly he reproduced the dish 
again and again, disguised with various sauces and season- 
ings, till the whole had been eaten by his master. < And 
so,' he said, ' I serve up a truth in different forms, and 
make the public swallow it one way or another.' 

Varieties of Character, etc. 

' No man is proud of a fault as sl fault. He is apt to 
be proud of it as contrasted with the opposite fault, which 
of course he dislikes from not being himself prone to it — 
as, for instance, a spendthrift is proud of being not miserly,' 
&c. I remarked in objection to this, 'Was not Byron 
proud of having violent passions?' — 'That,' he replied, 

D D 2 



» 



404 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

< was in contrast with those who were cold and in- 
sensible.' 

Of one man he said, c He is a great scholar and a great 
goose.' He was careful in pointing out that scholarship 
did not necessarily imply other kinds of ability. w The 
best scholar,' he said, 'whom I ever had as a candidate 
for orders, was a man whom I was very near rejecting for 
incompetency.' He used, in connection w T ith this, to 
allude to the history of the famous Welsh idiot, whose 
talent for acquiring languages was so remarkable that he 
had taught himself five or six with little or no help. He 
would read as long as he was allowed a light, but had no 
interest in the subject-matter of what he read, and was in 
other respects very low in the scale of idiocy, incapable of 
gratitude, and unable to take the most ordinary care of 
himself. ' He was made up,' nry father said, ' of a French 
idiot, a Latin idiot, a Welsh idiot,' &c. 

Of another man, a fellow- collegian of his own, he used 
to say, he spoke Greek like an Athenian blacksmith ; 
fluently, but without intelligence or elegance. 

Of morbid Ideas and, Fancies. 

' When a person has a morbid fancy like that of poor 
Cowper, the w r orst course is to attempt to argue or reason 
him out of it ; this only makes him the champion to defend 
it against all opponents. The only way is to lead the 
mind to other topics, and so insensibly cause it to be 
forgotten.' 

6 That which did not come in at the door of reason will 
not come out at it.' 

Memory. 

' I never,' he said, 4 could have been a good whist player, 
for I never could remember what cards were out.. For 
the same reason I could not be a good liar. The proverb 
says, liars should have good memories. They have to 
keep in mind what lies are out, and take care not to con- 
tradict them.' 



TABLE TALK. 405 

Fair Play. 

'The notion of fair play among the lower classes in 
England is one which is seldom appealed to in vain. It 
is not so with countries which have been long ill-governed, 
as Ireland. There it is considered rather a triumph to 
overpower lyy numbers. " What a shame/' said a spectator 
in a fight, " that so many should set on a man when he is 
down ! " — " Ah, your honour, if you knew how hard it was 
to get him down, you wouldn't wonder at our trying to 
keep him there ! " was the reply. 

' A dog,' he used to observe, 6 is in this respect more 
generous than many men. He will never attack another 
dog who lies down.' 

Slowness. 

He always spoke of himself as slow, though sure, in 
most operations of the mind ; but there was one depart- 
ment in which he had the faculty of thinking of the right 
thing as far as he knew it, at the right moment, viz. 
medical knowledge. 

Ignorance. 

' There is no kind of ignorance for which people are 
more laughed at, than ignorance of something which they 
could not possibly know unless they were told.' 

Satire. 

For a person who possessed the power of satire, he in- 
dulged in it very little. I think I have heard he was 
more inclined to it when younger, but since I have known 
him he was remarkably forbearing in this way. And it 
is worthy of remark that, though he was rough and some- 
times rude in manner, and occasionally showed people up 
in a way not altogether agreeable to their feelings, his 
conversation had none of that sting which often lurks in 
the expressions of those far more outwardly polished and 
courteous ; no one ever heard from him those insinuations 
which men of the world know how dexterously to infuse 



406 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. 

into their remarks without openly transgressing the rules 
of politeness. 

He used to say that a man might fairly allow himself 
the indulgence of keeping a register of the sharp things 
which occur to him, but which he refrains from utter- 
ing. 

I have therefore very few speeches of this kind to 
record. I recollect, however, one instance. When walk- 
ing with his brother-in-law, he met a man who, generally 
speaking, neglected public worship, and rather took a 
pleasure in brazening it out before the clergymen. On 
this occasion it happened he had attended divine service on 
the Sunday, and coming up to the two friends, he remarked 
in a very self-complacent tone, ' I've been to church.' 
My father turned to his brother-in-law and said, ' He 
speaks as if he had done God Almighty a great favour 
in condescending to attend a place of worship.' The 
man stared and looked rather foolish at this unexpected 
remark. 

Descriptions of Character. 

His descriptions of some peculiar characters were vivid 
and striking. He had once a man at his hall of whom he 
observed, that his was a kind of character which many 
would mistake for a noble one. ' He had,' he said, ' great 
energy and resolution, and feelings both susceptible and 
enduring; but, having little conscientiousness, little or 
no benevolence, and intense self-esteem and vanity, his 
energy was employed only in his own behalf, and his 
sensitive feelings were for himself and not for others. He 
was utterly careless of inflicting pain, but never forgot an 
injury received.' 

Frivolity. 

6 In calling a person frivolous, you imply that he is 
capable of higher things than those with which he usually 
occupies himself. No one would call a child frivolous for 
playing with a doll.' 



TABLE TALK. 407 

Esprit cle Corps in Women. 

' Women's party spirit embraces their sex. Men have 
as much party spirit, but except in very young boys just 
out of the nursery, it does not take the line of defending 
their sex, as such. They feel they are, in fact, the lords 
of creation, and do not care to defend their rights.' 

Differences between Fear and Fright 

6 Fear, when unaccompanied by fright, sharpens the 
faculties ; fright confuses them. A hare is afraid, but not 
frightened, when she is hunted by dogs ; she has her wits 
about her, and uses every artifice to elude their pursuit. 
She is, in fact, a courageous animal, because self-possessed ; 
and her thriving and being in good condition during a life 
of perpetual dangers and escapes, shows that it is not a life 
really painful or distressing to her. The only time when 
a hare really loses self-possession, is when she is pursued 
by a weasel : then she becomes really frightened, and the 
faculties being paralyzed by terror, she lies down and makes 
no attempt whatever to escape.' 

Of Courage. 

' Acquired courage is in this respect better than natural 
— there is no point from which a man will shrink when 
called on, if he has thoroughly trained himself to meet 
danger and opposition.' He said this in reference to 
himself. 

Duelling. 

In speaking of an eminent public character, I remarked 
one day to my father, that the countenance of that man 
expressed great firmness. A lady present observed, that 
his conduct on the occasion of a duel he was once called 
on to fight did not look like firmness. ' He is not physi- 
cally courageous by nature,' said my father, 'but he can 
screw himself up to anything. I have declined an intro- 
duction to that person,' he said, on another occasion, ' on 
one ground, and on one only, viz. that he uses language 
which leads to duelling.' 



408 LIFE OF AKCHBI5H0P WHATELY. 

My father thought that if the plan were generally adopted 
of withdrawing from the society of persons who were in 
the habit of doing this, duelling, and the supposed ne:e?- 
sity for it. would be effectually put down. 

Praise after Death, 

; It is not from jealousy that men are unwilling to praise 
anyone till after his death : thev do not wish to commit 
themselves by the expression of opinions respecting him 
which his subsequent conduct may falsify." 

Ridicule. 

• If you are afraid of being laughed at.* he used to say, 
•you make yourself the most abject of slaves, for you are 
at the mercy 01 any fool who chooses to ridicule you.' H^ 
himself. as a young man. had a happy manner of turning 
the laugh against the person who raised it. When idle 
students sneered at him for his anxiety to miss non- 
Copleston's lectures, in his early college days, he replied. 
• If a shoemaker were paid by me to make me a pair of 
shoes. I should not consider myself peculiarly fortunate in 
being able to av-.-id wearing them. For my part." he ad 

•I would odadlv limp up stairs on one leo; to hear a lecture 
of Copleston's.' 

Truth. 

• In England truth lies, as the proverb says, at the 
bottom of a well: it is hard to reach, but when you do get 
at it, it is clear. In Ireland it lies at the bottom of a 
bog: when you get it to the light., it is muddy and 

•: cured.' 

Perfecti 

His comment on the words. "Be ye therefore perfect.' 
was. "'Aim at perfection, do not be content with saying, as 
many do. *• I do not pretend to much temperance, that is 
not my virtue, but I am liberal." or. •'•' I know I am not par- 

ularlv charitable, but I am prudent." as if a virtue would 



TABLE TALK. 409 

make up for a fault, and counterbalance it. Everything 
is to be complete.' 

Go-operation. 

' I am glad sometimes when those I am co-operating 
with in endeavouring to pass certain measures, are men 
who so widely differ from me, that no one can suspect us 
of ereneral agreement, because all can then see that it is 
only for a particular object that I join them.* 

Conduct as a Dean of a College. 

i I was always/ he said. ' anxious to show a man that I 
trusted him (at least if he seemed deserving of trust;. 
My predecessor warned me never to believe a word the 
young men said, for a lie, he said, was considered as no 
lie to the dean. I saw that this was the result of their 
never being believed, and therefore, to inculcate habits of 
truthfulness, I adopted the opposite course, and took pains 
to show I considered their word was to be relied on. In 
this way they were put upon honour not to deceive me.' 

His principle was to be severe rather than strict, not to 
make much of trifles, but to be uncompromising in getting 
rid of a man who was not tit to stay at college. 

In his diocese he acted on the same principle. A man 
had been guilty of a punishable offence, and his domestic- 
chaplain pleaded for his being let off for this once. 6 No, 5 
said the Archbishop, ' I will take him while I can, now 
that he has made himself amenable to the law. If I let 
him off, he will only have learned caution, and will be 
a thorn in my side ever after. 5 

Lo/ngiiage. 

6 Sometimes a man is said to have a great command of 
language, merely because he has a great flow of words 
which he cannot control. He has really no more com- 
mand of it than he would have over a horse which run- 
away with him. It would be more correct to say, that 
language has a command of him.' 



410 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Depression. 

' When we are uncomfortable and out of sorts — just 
sufficiently unwell not to be able to enjoy anything, but 
not incapacitated for exertion — it is a good rule at such a 
time to set ourselves resolutely to do something of which 
we shall be glad afterwards.' 

Suitability of Character in the choice of a Profession. 

' It is of great importance,' he often observed, ' to put a 
man into the right hole. An old school-fellow of mine 
had a father who, being a literary man, was anxious to 
bring up his son to a learned profession. But he hated the 
sight of a book, failed in all his studies, was put to several 
professions, in all of which he was unsuccessful, and though 
not ill-disposed originally, began to fall into dissipation 
from restless discouragement. This is a very common 
case when a man is going on badly with his work ; the 
wish to be able to do something as well as other men, 
leads him often to throw his energies into vicious 
pursuits. 

' All this while the friends of this youth never noticed 
that his memory for the construction of a cart or carriage, 
or the qualifications of a horse, was as acute as his memory 
for books was bad ; his tastes and powers all led him to 
outward objects rather than to literary pursuits. At last^ 
in despair, his friends sent him out as a colonist, and this 
turned out to be the right step. His energies had found 
their proper scope ; he applied himself to draining, plant- 
ing, &c, became a leading and flourishing colonist, and 
even learned to relish books, when he received a parcel 
from home as a variety. Another man I knew had so 
remarkable a talent for mechanics, that he actually dis- 
covered the secret of " the invisible girl." He was equally 
unfitted for a learned profession ; but he was urged by his 
friends to take orders, and the only way in which he dis- 
tinguished himself when a clergyman, was in the admirable 
fitting up of his parsonage. There again talents were 
wasted, and therefore misapplied.' 



TABLE TALK. 411 



The Bar. 



When he heard that some young* man of parts, in whose 
success he was interested, was preparing for the bar, he 
said he was sorry for one reason, namely, that in the case 
of an advocate the superiority of one man over another in 
point of eloquence and abilities must go, as far as it can, 
against the cause of justice, which would be best served 
by the two sides being evenly balanced. 

The Advocate and the Judge. 

' There are some men in the world who are occupied so 
exclusively with the premises of a proposition, that they 
do not care much about the conclusion. This class in- 
cludes many of high intellectual powers. The common 
run of men care only for the conclusion, and think little 
of the premises. These answer respectively to the advo- 
cate and the jury, in a court of law. The wisest men are 
those who, like the judge, are occupied with the connexion 
between the premises and the conclusion.' 

Machinery in Fiction. 

6 What destroys the interest in a tale to any but children, 
is when supernatural machinery is introduced without any 
assigned or definite limit, as is the case with the "Arabian 
Nights." It is impossible to feel any interest in the fate 
of a hero when the powers enlisted in his behalf are 
boundless. In the "Tales of the Genii," on the other 
hand, the limits of the supernatural powers introduced are 
so distinctly laid down, that there is an opening for con- 
jecture as to how the story will proceed. 

6 Homer's machinery is of a very peculiar kind: if it 
were all struck out, the events of the poem would remain 
the same. The causes which decide the fate of the battles 
are natural ones, but ascribed to the agency of the gods 
and goddesses.' 

Regenerators of the World. 

6 Some men have the idea that they are born to regene- 
rate the world, and make out their future life into a sort 



412 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

of epic poem, with themselves for the heroes ; and mean- 
while they neglect all the bumble duties which lie near 
home, such as regard for the feelings and rights and wel- 
fare of those who have a claim on them, &c. Such a 
person is like a house magnificently built and elabo- 
rately ornamented, but rendered uninhabitable by the 
want of the needful appliances for health, cleanliness, and 
convenience.' 

Arrogance. 

6 There is a great difference between always thinking 
you are right, and thinking you are always right. On 
each individual occasion I must of course think my 
opinion the right one, otherwise it would not be my 
opinion; but I know that among many opinions I may 
hold some must be incorrect, as I am a fallible being.' 

Anger. 

6 A passionate man will perhaps allow that he is some- 
times the cause of pain to his friends by his occasional 
outbreaks of temper. But he does not generally remem- 
ber or consider that the greatest evil which results from 
these frequent outbreaks is the continual feeling of dread 
and, insecurity which they engender.' 

Tyranny. 

6 A rebellious subject, when he gets the upper hand, is 
always a tyrannical ruler. The Irish do not in genera" 
mind tyranny, provided it is illegal. The best way to 
destroy 0' Conn ell's popularity,' he used to remark when 
it was at its height, ' would be to make him Lord Lieu- 
tenant.' 

Joy and Grief. 

6 It is remarkable how much oftener persons have died of 
ioy than of grief. It used to be the habit, when a 
criminal was reprieved from the scaffold, for the gaoler tc 
give him a quieting dose before the news was communi- 
cated to him. The reason of this seems to be that, when 



TABLE TALK. 413 

welcome news is received, the feelings come forward, as it 
were, to meet the understanding. In the case of bad 
news, the feelings recoil instinctively ; the first effect is 
that of stupefaction.' 

In illustration of the overpowering effect of sudden joy, 
my father used to tell a story of a gold-digger in Australia, 
who had been toiling many months in vain, and after 
repeated disappointments and discouragements suddenly 
came upon an enormous nugget of gold. He was found stand- 
ing beside his new-found prize in a state of hopeless idiocy. 

In answer to these remarks of my father's I quoted Paley's 
observation : ' If it be urged that men readily believe what 
they greatly desire, I affirm that the contrary is the case : 
it is said that the disciples "believed not for joy." ' 

'Very well objected,' observed my father — I was a lad 
at the time — ' but how are the two reconciled ? ' I could 
not solve the difficulty; and, after letting me try, he did 
so as follows : ' When the apostles ei believed not for 
joy," it was for the joy they would feel, not which they 
did actually feel. We are sometimes slow in believing 
what we ardently desire, because it seems "too good 
news," as the saying is, "to be true ; " but when the joy 
is certain, and the mind fully grasps it, the feelings are 
ready instantly to meet the convictions of the understand- 
ing, and the intensity of the shock is sometimes too great 
for mind and body. 

'With reference,' he said on another occasion, 'to the 
reluctance to believe what we wish, in some minds this 
is very strong, in others not. I was once looking at a 
book, in which the writer tried to make out that those 
were not fair judges of the truth of Christianity who wished 
to believe it. This could only apply to certain classes of 
mind; with many, the reverse would be the case. The 
theory, therefore, could not hold good.' 

Natural History. 

On all subjects connected with natural history and 
kindred branches of knowledge he was well informed, and 
had much interesting matter always to communicate ; but 



414 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

as he did not profess to make new discoveries, or to go 
deep into any of these branches, his conversation on them, 
though full of amusing details and observations, did not 
contain much that could be recorded in these pages. A 
few of his remarks on dogs may interest some. He was 
particularly fond of training and educating these animals, 
and often observed that learning to 6 fetch and carry ' is 
the alphabet of a dog's education; when that is once 
taught, anything else can be added. But he considered it- 
useless to attempt to teach this after the first few months. 
It must be learned young, or not at all. Of course it is 
well known to experienced sportsmen what kind of doers 
may be trusted, when the game is killed, to carry it in their 
mouths without injuring the birds. He made the dis- 
tinction in the following quaint manner : c All dogs which 
wave their tails in a circle spoil the game in carryino- it, 
while those which wave them to and fro can carry it un- 
injured.' 

<T)o you know,' he said, ' why every dog walks round 
three times before lying down ? It is an instinct of his 
wild nature, enabling him to form a lair out of tangled 
grass or brushwood, by first pressing it down.' 

The remarkable insight into peculiarities of nature, 
which was afterw r ards so much called out in his inter- 
course with men, was brought also to bear on animals; 
and he used to relate a case in which he had saved the life 
of a pointer of his brother's. This poor animal had been 
condemned to be put to death as useless because she 
always ran home when taken out with her master to shoot. 
My father, observing her narrowly, guessed that the cause 
w r as simply that the poor creature was so gentle and timid 
that the sharp words with which she was called to order 
positively terrified her and drove her away. He under- 
took to try himself to train her; and, by gentle en- 
couraging words and caresses, he overcame her timidity, 
and made her, as he said, the best sporting dog he had 
ever seen — a standing lesson on the power of gentleness 
in education, and one which might well be applied to the 
case of human beings as well as dogs. 



TABLE TALK. 415 

Thoughts on various Authors. 

At a competitive examination at Oxford, my father ob- 
served that Cicero furnished the best test of the relative 
proficiency of the candidates. Most tolerably good scholars 
will construe Virgil and Horace equally well, and much 
alike ; but no two persons construe Cicero alike. 

He preferred Horace to Juvenal ; at least, considered 
Horace's humour as of a superior character. Xothing, 
he said, could be more different than the kind of humour 
of the two poets, Horace's being much the more subtle 
and delicate of the two ; and Dean Swift he considered as 
the best imitator of Horace. But he also relished Ju- 
venal's humour. I recollect his quoting his description 
of the Roman parasites who waited, in anxious expecta- 
tion, at a side table for the morsels which their patron 
occasionally sent them. He used to say that, of all 
English writers, Addison was the one whose humour most 
resembled that of Horace, while Johnson's equally re- 
sembled Juvenal's. 

Poetry of the Ancients. 

6 Many descriptions may be found in ancient poetry 
which suggest to us more poetical ideas than they did to 
the writers. They do not appear to have entered into the 
beauties of nature. They spoke of cool water, refresh- 
ing shade, fruitful gardens, verdant fields, &c. but did 
not regard these things, as we do. as objects of beauty.' 
Perhaps my father did not allow for the possibility of 
beauty being admired, or at least enjoyed, unconsciously 
and without .being; acknowledged. 

Thucydides was one of his favourite writers. Of the 
genius of Alcibiades, as described by him, he thought very 
highly. He always maintained that, but for the apparently 
trifling event of the mutilation of the statues of Mercury 
by the enemies of Alcibiades, Athens would certainly have 
been mistress of the world. 



416 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

Of English Poetry. 

My father had a certain amount of poetical taste and 
feeling, but it ran through his mind like a vein of some 
metal, not mixing with any other parts. He could write 
verses of undoubted merit, but his prose writings are de- 
void of imagination. His similes were sometimes poetical, 
but it was by chance, for he chose them for their apt- 
ness, not for their beauty. He did not, I think, appre- 
ciate the highest kinds of poetry, or understand that one 
office of the poet is to bring in truth, as it were, at the 
back door. Scott was his favourite poet; and it must be 
confessed that his admiration of him was somewhat over- 
strained. Crabbe he greatly delighted in. He remarked 
that the title he had justly won, of c Nature's sternest 
painter, and her best,' is not only from the circumstance 
of his painting the darker side of human nature, but also 
that his delineations of bad character have none of the 
kind of varnish, of outward decoration, which other 
writers sometimes throw around a villain, so as to make 
the picture, even though a truthful one, less disgusting. 
As, for example, Falstaff's wit and humour, though they 
do not conceal his vices, make them appear less revolting. 

' Crabbe,' he remarked, ' gives us wickedness without 
any softening touch to make its deformity less glaring. 
He often displays pathos and feeling, but delights in doing 
so where it is least expected.' 

The lake poets my father did not generally rate high. 
He said he was effectually deterred from cultivating an 
acquaintance with Wordsworth's poetry by learning it re- 
quired deep study. The pleasure in poetry, he thought, 
should not be gained with labour and toil. He thought 
Coleridge's poems indicated more genius than Words- 
worth's or Southey's. He said they were like the opium 
dreams of a man of genius. His admiration for Moore's 
lyric poetry was intense. But in reference to the seditious 
spirit which often lurked under the soft musical diction and 
poetical images, he used to quote the lines on Harmodius — 

ev ixvprov K\dbcp . . . rb £i(pos 
<popr)cr&. 



TABLE TALU. 417 

Tennyson was not the kind of poet he could readily 
appreciate, and he condemned him, as he did other poets, 
on too slight grounds. He disliked his alteration of 
a beautiful little tale in Miss Mitford's ' Our Village,' 
and thought it arose from want of real poetic feeling. 
The truth being that Tennyson's genius does not lie in 
narrative poetry, the kind in which my father most de- 
lighted. 

Blank Verse. 

He thought our language was unsuited to blank verse, 
at least in epic poetry. ' The Greeks/ he said, • considered 
hexameters the most fitting metre for epic poetry ; for this 
our language is totally unfitted. The measure we use in 
epic poetry,' he said, ' wants rhythm and melody. Milton 
is the only poet who succeeded in really adapting blank 
verse to our language, and even in him we can perceive 
stiffness and evident effort.' 

Prose Writers. 

' Scott,' he said, < as a novel writer reminds me of a man 
in a state of clairvoyance. If you were to ask him his 
private opinion of some great political event, he would 
probably give you the most shallow vulgar fallacies. But 
when speaking in the character of some personage in his 
novels, he will often take the most candid, enlightened, 
and sensible view of the same subject. Whenever,' he 
would add, 6 Scott does fall into the faults of inferior 
writers, i.e. of analysing the characters he introduces into 
a tale, his analysis is totally different from the character 
they display in the course of it : they will not do as they 
are told.' 

Macaulay. 

' Many suppose,' he observed, ' that Macaulay must be 
shallow, because he is clear and brilliant ; whereas under 
that brilliancy there is close and accurate reasoning. 
Macaulay's Essays are like very fine champagne with a 

E E 



418 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

very slight flavour of gin. He is generally fair in his 
judgments, but there is always a whiff of party slang. 

; Macaulay is wrong in calling Boswell " a dunce, a 
parasite, and a coxcomb : '* the last he was. but he was 
neither a dunce nor a parasite. A parasite is* one who 
makes up to a great man for what he can get from him : 
BoswelTs admiration for Johnson was quite disinterested.* 

; Macaulay,* he observed. ' sometimes steals similes from 
me : but he steals like a rich man ! ' 

Abraham Tucker. 

' This writer contains a most incongruous mixture of 
wisdom and folly. He wrote down whatever ideas occurred 
to him, and put them down as they came, without any 
arrangement. You have, side by side, the most ingenious 
speculations and the merest twaddle.' 

Bishop Berkeley. 

He was neither a disciple nor an opponent of his 
views. When one of us remarked, on reading some ac- 
count of the Bishop's life, that it was strange that a man 
who held such an apparently enervating theory as that of 
the non-existence of matter, should have been so active 
and energetic in practice, my father replied, ' Bishop 
Berkelev's theory of ideas is one of those theories which 
have no practical effect, provided you carry it out tho- 
roughlv. It is like the pressure of the atmosphere, which 
is oniv felt if it becomes partial. I may be convinced that 
the wall is not a substance but an idea, and that the same 
mav be said of my head. But I shall be restrained from 
knocking myself against the wall by the belief that if my 
idea of a head strikes the idea of a wall, the result will 
be the idea of a headache. The same may be said of 
fatalism. An old lady, who held strong predestinarian 
views, checked her daughter when complaining of the 
conduct of a profligate brother, by reminding her that he 
was ordained to act in this way. The daughter might 
have replied that she was ordained to complain of him. 



TABLE TALK. 419 

The Turks take fatalism partially when they refuse to use 
precautions against the plague, and this causes the prac- 
tical evil.' He added, in speaking of Berkeley's theory, 
4 It may be true — we cannot prove the contrary ; and it 
certainly is the legitimate deduction from Locke. 

Shakespeare. 

6 To judge of Shakespeare by what are called his 
" beauties," is like judging of the Nile by a cup of water. 
You may collect beautiful thoughts from detached passages, 
but they lose a great part of their force by being detached 
from the context. 

6 A collection,' my father observed, 6 of the beauties of 
Shakespeare, made by himself, would probably contain 
some of the worst passages (according to modern taste) 
that he ever wrote. He evidently prided himself on his 
forced conceits and indifferent puns far more than on all 
his masterly delineations of character. 

' An ordinary writer would have made Lear a model of 
perfection, in which case the conduct of his daughters 
would have revolted us so as to produce a disgust which 
destroys the tragic power. By representing him, as 
Shakespeare does, as a wilful old man — of violent pas- 
sions but weak character — we can still feel the deepest 
compassion for him, without the horror we should have 
felt at such a fate overtaking a man of blameless cha- 
racter. 

' Shakespeare,' he remarked on another occasion, ' had 
no intention of inculcating a moral when he wrote ; but 
his characters do teach one a moral lesson, because they 
are true to nature. He never attempts, like others, to 
paint a generous sensualist. The real tendency of sensu- 
ality is to make a man cold-hearted and selfish. The 
dramatists of Charles II.'s time (and the same maybe said 
of Sheridan ) represent some of their profligate characters 
as kind-hearted, good-natured men at bottom. Shake- 
speare is more true to nature and more moral when he 
represents Falstaff, with all his brilliant^ wit and amusing 

EE 2 



420 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

qualities, as thoroughly cold-hearted, selfish, and even 
revengeful and malicious. 1 

On the ' Taming of the Shrew.' he observed : ' The 
change in the conduct of Katherine is quite true to 
nature. A character of that energetic, decided mould 
would, when really conquered, give in thoroughly, and be 
as determined and positive in her obedience and submis- 
sion as she was formerly in her rebellion. I heard once,' 
added he, ' of a sequel 'being written to that play, called, 
"The Tamer Tamed." It represented Petruchio as being 
married again, after the death of Katherine, to a wife of 
a totally different stamp, a soft, quiet, yielding creature, 
who ends by governing him completely. I suppose from 
its failure that it was ill executed, but the idea was a 
gfood one. and the occurrence would have been very likely 
to take place. The same thought is to be found in 
Crabbe's tale of u The Wager," where the would-be des- 
potic husband finds himself obliged to give way to his 
apparently gentle and timid wife.' 

Sheridan. 

c " The School for Scandal " has an immoral tendency. 
It represents strict morality as mere cant and hypocrisy. 
At least that would be the conclusion naturally deduced 
from the history. The generosity and frankness of a gay 
roue is agreeably contrasted with the base, mean trickery 
of his brother, who professes high moral sentiments.* 

1 One of the passages of Shakespeare my father was fondest of reading 
was Pistol's announcement of Henry V. ? s accession to FalstafF, and his 
triumphant exclamations of joy on his own account, and then the burst of 
spiteful feeling, where he adds, ' And woe to my Lord Chief Justice ! ' He 
used to say that was a striking touch of nature which few writers would 
hare had the courage to introduce, because it showed FalstafFs character in 
its darkest phase. — Ed. 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 421 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS BY REV. HERCULES 
H. DICKINSON, M.A., VICAR OF ST. ANN'S, DUBLIN. 1 



My earliest recollections of Archbishop Whately go back 
to the year 1833. And the very first thing that I remember 
of him left such an impression of his kindness of heart 
as thirty years more of his' acquaintance and friendship 
served only to deepen. He was standing on the steps of 
my father's house, in Baggot Street, just as I, with my 
brothers and sisters, came home from our afternoon walk. 
I can distinctly recall his voice, and his benevolent smile, 
as he cried out, three or four times, ' I see little lambs ' 
— ' I see little lambs ; ' and coming to the edge of the 
steps, gathered five or six of the younger ones into his 
arms, and then walked into the house with one of us upon 
his shoulder. All children naturally took to him, and 
seemed, with the quick and correct intuition of childhood, 
to understand and trust his love for them. In after years 
I used to observe, when walking with him in St. Stephen's 
Green, how the young children used to stop and smile up 
at him, and how some of the little ones who were accus- 
tomed to see him there, and whom he often delighted by 
sending his dog to fetch and carry for their amusement, 
used even to run up to him with the familiar salutation 
' Artsbissop ! ' This he was always pleased with ; often 
stooping to take up some little toddler into his arms, or 
laying his hand upon its head and passing on with a half- 
murmured word of blessing. In the Female Orphan 
House, and in the National Model Schools, which he used 
often to visit, he particularly endeared himself to the 
children : and I think many of them will be not the less 
stanch episcopalians in after life because their first idea 
of a bishop is that of one who never forgot the words of 
the Chief Bishop and Shepherd, ' Suffer little children to 
come unto me.' 

The suspicion and distrust with which he was met on 

1 Son of the late Bishop Dickinson. 



422 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

liis arrival in Ireland, were such as he could not be wholly 
unprepared for. As an Englishman, and one who kept 
aloof from all parties, he could hardly have been generally 
popular ; but the bitterness of opposition he encountered 
was such that he must have been more or less than man 
had he not felt it. It was natural, therefore, that he 
should draw into his special confidence and friendship 
those few who did from the first understand the goodness 
and honesty which came in later years to be recognised 
by all ; nor is he fairly to be blamed if, with his natural 
confidingness of disposition, he was sometimes deceived 
by the pretence of sympathy and a co-operation not per- 
fectly disinterested. The very show of kindness was 
something refreshing in the midst of the hostility which, 
on all sides, encountered him. 

It would give needless pain to many to refer more par- 
ticularly to those years of opposition. But no one can do 
full justice to the character of the Archbishop who has not 
the records of that period before him. I well remember 
how the whole Irish press, day after day, month after 
month, year after year, continued to pour out invectives, 
accusations, and innuendoes, and how eagerly these were 
taken up and repeated from mouth to mouth. That the 
Archbishop was a ' Jesuit ' was whispered here and there ; 
acute physiognomists saw something suspicious in the look 
of his hall porter ; and when, at last, some one found out 
that in the words ' Eicardus Whately ' might be spelt out 
the mystic number 666, the evidence against his Protest- 
antism was felt to be conclusive. Things of this sort, of 
course, only amused him; but there was a determined 
opposition, and an obstinate distrust, which constantly put 
real difficulties in his way, and thwarted his efforts for the 
good of the diocese and of the Church in Ireland gene- 
rally. A friend of his was one day making a journey on 
the top of a coach, and had for fellow-passenger a Koman 
Catholic gentleman. The conversation turned on the 
Archbishop, about whom Eoman Catholic papers were 
then respectful or silent. ' But how is it that the members 
of your Church never abuse him ? ' it was asked. 6 Oh, 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 423 

we leave that to you. You Protestants do it so well that 
you save us the trouble ; not that we like him any better 
than you perhaps ; but then, you see, you do our work 
very effectively yourselves.' 

Through all this storm of obloquy, which blew with 
hardly diminished violence for a quarter of a century, the 
Archbishop held on his way unswervingly. And judging 
from his conduct, some might have thought he did not 
feel it. But that he did, and very keenly. 

He was not, in his manful perseverance in duty, buoyed 
up by either hope or stubbornness. Many persons are 
kept steady to their point and purpose by a sanguine tem- 
per or an obstinate disposition. But Archbishop Whateiy 
was not at all sanguine ; on the contrary, he was so hope- 
less as almost always to anticipate failure in everything 
he undertook. And, if he had given way to the bias of 
his natural constitution, he would have been overyielding, 
indulgent, and compliant. 

To anything like severity of discipline it was an effort 
of pain to bring himself; but he held firmly to truth and 
duty, upon principle. He formed his convictions and 
purposes upon reasons which he had deliberately weighed 
and believed to be sound. When he had once made up 
his mind, he went straight on his way as steadfastly as 
though he had never heard the voice of obloquy, while 
those who knew him well knew that he often went with a 
bleeding heart, feeling intensely the opposition of many 
whom he respected and loved, yet never flinching for that 
or any other consideration from the path of duty. 

It needs not to be concealed that for some of this un- 
popularity the Archbishop's manner was to be blamed. 
Nothing could have been more mild and tolerant and con- 
ciliatory than were his Charges, Pastoral letters, and 
Addresses ; and to all those who could appreciate his 
thorough truthfulness, these gave the real measure of the 
man. and made them comparatively indifferent to the 
peculiarities of manner by which those who did not know 
him so well or judged him hastily were apt to be offended. 
He gave offence to many quite unintentionally. It often 



424 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TTHATELY. 

happened that when he was walking through the street 
and much preoccupied in conversation or in thought, he 
either did not observe at all, or only half noticed, in an 
absent way, the salutation which was offered in passing. 
And this was sometimes mistaken. In his manners there 
was at times a startling brusquerie by which shy people 
were made uncomfortable and proud people affronted. 
Absence of mind and shyness were very erroneously, yet 
not unnaturally, interpreted as rudeness. He would often 
enter a room, and with scant salutation or none at all 
begin abruptly upon the subject of which his mind was 
full ; and then perhaps quit it as suddenly, forgetful of 
the usual courtesies of farewell. He had been perhaps 
just introduced to some one who was of consequence, or else 
supposed himself to be so. And such a person might 
have been easily charmed out of his previous prejudices if 
the Archbishop had been an adept in those social arts by 
which other men are able — very harmlessly and allowably 
— to smooth over opposition. But he was no such adept, 
and had no arts of any sort. He was natural even to a 
fault ; and in the careless familiarity of the College com- 
mon room had acquired a habit of forgetfulness as to the 
smaller conventionalities of life, which was, no doubt, a 
not unfrequent hindrance to him. And yet he could, on 
occasion, comport himself with a dignity and even courtly 
politeness, which sat gracefully enough upon him, though 
it was not his most characteristic and ordinary bearing. 
At his own dinner table he was always courteous and 
particularly attentive as a host. No matter how earnestly 
engaged in conversation, he stood ready to receive his 
clergy one by one as they came in on his monthly dinner 
days, and at the table never failed to take especial and 
friendly notice of the greatest stranger among his guests. 
He would occasionally, in the keenness of discussion, seem 
peremptory and somewhat impatient of contradiction. 
Seeing very clearly himself, and having reasons which he 
believed to be sound and logical for his opinions, he was 
apt sometimes to betray by his manner that he believed 
the persevering dissent of his opponent to be the result of 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 425 

obstinacy, stupidity, or prejudice, and to assume the man 
to be, as he would sometimes say, ' proof -proof ? 

He was often merciless enough in his use of the logical 
weapon reductio ad absurdum ; and as the reasoner feels 
generally too much sympathy with his argument to enjoy 
this mode of refutation, especially in public, the Arch- 
bishop's antagonists, whether convinced or not, often gave 
way. Yet no one, I think, ever suspected him of wishing 
to ride dowm an opponent by any official weight or force 
of his episcopal authority. His eagerness arose, on the 
contrary, from forgetfulness of these. His clergy could 
hardly be expected to forget that they were arguing with 
their Archbishop ; and it was not easy, even for a beneficed 
clergyman, under such circumstances, to hit out well, and 
press his points as tellingly as at an ordinary clerical 
meeting. But the Archbishop on such occasions forgot 
that he was anything more than Dr. Whately ; he felt and 
spoke as if he were back again in the common-room 
debating with his equals. If he spoke ex cathedra, it was 
not as from an episcopcal throne, but rather as from the 
seat of the Professor. The youngest curate was just as 
free to enter the list with him as any dignitary who might 
be present ; and, indeed, would have been likely to re- 
ceive a gentler handling than the said dignitary ; and the 
Archbishop was always better pleased upon the evenings 
when the discussion had been open and animated. . He 
was so wholly free from any thought of throwing his 
episcopal dignity into the scale in such conversational 
debates, that he would have even felt surprised and in- 
credulous if anyone had hinted to him that his official 
position laid a restraint on his antagonists in argument. 
He never wished people to seem or be afraid of him in 
any way, and always liked most such persons as were not. 
I shall ever think it a great pity that this part of his 
character was not generally understood. Because, not 
really knowing him, many men felt repelled and stood 
aloof or drew aside, whom therefore he naturally concluded 
to be either entirely opposed to him in principle or kept 
away by personal dislike ; and, of course, neither of these 



426 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP VTHATELY. 

circumstances can come to anv man in the light of a 

recommendation. It has been sometimes said of him that 
he liked only those who agreed with him or who seemed 
to do so. I can, however, testify that I have often heard 
him speak with sincere respect and regard of many who 
differed from him very much, and who spoke out their 
differences too. There was one clergyman who. whenever 
present at the monthly clerical dinner, used with especial 
boldness to enter into argument with the Archbishop, and 
firmly, though alwavs with Christian and o-entlemanlv 
mildness, would hold his ground against him. And 
towards that man the Archbishop had, I know, the most 
kindly feeling. He liked him all the better for his quiet 
courage. But, in point of fact, there really never was an 
archbishop or bishop in whose presence his clergy felt less 
restraint. And though men too shy or too proud to risk 
encounter with so acute a dialectician as the Archbishop, 
held back and were silent on these occasions, they will 
remember that those who chose to take it had always full 
liberty of speech. There was. assuredly,, no official stiff- 
ness at those gatherings of his clergy. Clergymen from 
other dioceses, who occasionally dined at the Palace, ex- 
pressed surprise at the ( free-and-easy ' friendliness of 
these social meetings. The Archbishop was anxious to 
make all feel at home. He did not even like men to 
stand upon the order of their going : but when the door 
into the other room was thrown open, and dinner an- 
nounced, he would sometimes call out, if he observed 
delay for such punctilios, c Xow then, bundle in, curates, 
rectors, archdeacons, deans, bundle in, bundle in ! ' He 
certainly i held no man's person in admiration, because of 
advantage.' 

Nor was he influenced by personal considerations in his 
appointments. Whoever will take the trouble to look 
over the list of clergy whom he promoted may see the 
names of several who held opinions different from his on 
certain points of doctrine, or the national education 
question, and in politics. 

His thorough dislike of party spirit made him feel 



MISCELLANEOUS KECOLLECTIOXS. 427 

sympathy with anyone who made profession of the same 
dislike, and who disclaimed connection with any declared 
party in Church or State. It did not occur to him that 
in some cases this show of independence might be put on, 
from a spirit really the very opposite. Because when he 
himself took such and such steps or refused to join in 
such and such measures, he acted from an independent 
love of truth, and not from the desire of pleasing anyone, 
he forgot that some might join him in that apparently 
independent course of action from the less worthy motive 
of pleasing him. He gave them credit for an unworldly 
temper, forgetting that, in fact, the Palace was to them 
the world. 

He saw himself morally as well as intellectually reflected 
in those who came near him ; and often fancied congeni- 
ality of sentiment and feeling where there was little or 
none. 

He was, besides, so wholly truthful, and free from second- 
ary motives in what he did and said, that he was apt to take 
the sincerity of other people for granted. He was most 
unsuspicious, and was accordingly sometimes deceived. 

6 He drew around him a cordon of flatterers,' says an 
unfriendly Eeviewer ; and, if the truth is to be told as I 
desire to tell it, there is enough foundation for the sneer 
to claim some notice of it, particularly as the same thing 
has been elesewhere and frequently repeated. 

There v:as a sort of flattery administered to him by 
some, and much too trustfully and favourably accepted by 
him, I will acknowledge. But it was flattery of a peculiar 
sort. It did not take the form of praise ; it did not appeal 
to the ' love of approbation,' to speak the language of the 
phrenologists. This principle, indeed, I have said, the 
Archbishop naturally had, and strongly ; but, having it, 
he deserves all the more credit for Hfe-long self-denial 
upon this point; for conscientious perseverance, in the 
face of painful hostility and continued unpopularity, in 
saying what he thought true, and doing what he thought 
right. He never spoke or acted in order to gain praise. 

There were, however, two other parts of his character 



428 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

quite as strong naturally, one of which a sense of duty as 
well as inclination helped to make constantly stronger; 
the other, a feeling which does not seem to ask control 
so obviously as does the love of approbation. Among 
the active principles of Archbishop Whately's mind the 
strongest was, doubtless, his love of teaching. He carried 
this to Oxford ; he fostered it there in the lecture-room, 
in the common-room, and in the parks, where he was 
always seen, at leisure hours, with some disciple. If in 
his personal bearing he was not always ' gentle unto all 
men,' yet was he eminently ' apt to teach.' His bitterest 
enemy could not deny to him this qualification for the 
episcopate. He was above all other things SiSaKTL/cos. 
Nothing was more characteristic of him than the persistent 
energy with which he set himself to indoctrinate every- 
body, on all sides, right and left, with the religious, social, 
and ecclesiastical views which he held to be true. 

Again, among passive sentiments, none was more alive 
in the Archbishop than his craving for sympathy, for 
intellectual sympathy especially. Meeting, as he con- 
tinually did, with the opposition of the many, he was thrown 
for the satisfaction of this craving upon the few, and 
therefore he hailed it with unconcealed and artless delight 
whenever he saw or thought he saw it. It was a keener 
hunger with him, because so often starved; and it was 
not perhaps so discriminating in its appetite as it might 
have been but for the painful and compulsory fasts it had 
so often to keep. 

Some who wished to gain his favour made a habit of 
enquiring his opinion or asking his counsel on this question 
or that ; he was of course delighted to get a pupil ; pleased 
not on his own account only, but because of the oppor- 
tunity of teaching others standing by. He would call such 
a person ' a very good anvil.' It sometimes did happen, 
I know, that he saw through the motive of the enquiry — 
obvious enough indeed to fill bystanders with disgust — 
but he would take advantage of the opportunity of teach- 
ing nevertheless, thereby giving the impression that he 



• MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 429 

was gratified by getting it, and holding out encouragement 
to those who sought in this manner to please him. 

Oftener than not, however, he imputed his own guileless 
honesty to the questioner, and gave him credit for a sin- 
cere desire to learn; and then, when he found him an 
apparently intelligent disciple, bringing out something 
which he had really learnt from one of Whately's own 
books, the Archbishop would hail the opinion with plea- 
sure as a quite ' undesigned coincidence,' and think that 
he had found another like-minded with himself. In this 
way, his love of teaching and his desire for sympathy 
exposed him to the charge of allowing, if not accepting, 
what other people saw to be flattery. 

It is a curious circumstance, but perhaps not so un- 
common as might be at first supposed, that one who had 
so intense a craving for sympathy as the Archbishop had, 
should nevertheless have had small power of sympathy 
himself. And yet I think it was the want of this natural 
gift which deprived him of what may be properly called 
' Influence.* In one of his Commonplace Books he speaks 
of this as a subtle sort of force, which it is difficult to 
account for; and he often expressed his consciousness 
of wanting it. ' Whatever impression I make or ever 
have made upon the minds of others, has always been by 
force of arguments and never by influence in the correct 
sense of the word. 5 This I frequently heard him say. But 
it may be doubted whether anyone can exercise the subtle 
force called 6 influence 5 who has not either the natural 
power, or the art, of throwing himself into the feelings 
and circumstances of those he meets — in other words, the 
power of sympathy. And perhaps a very extraordinary 
strength, consistency, and fixedness of character like the 
Archbishop's is incompatible with the possession of this 
in any great degree. A man who sees truths obscurely or 
superficially, or who has an undecided hold of his opinions, 
or who has an impressible imagination easily coloured by 
present circumstances, will not only be able to sympathise 
more readily with those with whom he converses, but will 
be able to prevent himself from sympathising oppositely 



430 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

and inconsistently, just as depends upon his company. I 
rather think that among great men, strong leaders of 
speculative thought, and men who have cut their way 
through difficulties in action, the larger number would be 
classed among what may be called ' unsympathising cha- 
racters.' They may be genuinely philanthropic, large- 
hearted, benevolent, unselfish. All this Archbishop 
Whately was. A man of larger or truer benevolence there 
never lived. And yet his habits of reflectiveness and 
self-concentration, his searching acuteness of judgment, 
his rigid consistency of principle and habit, made it 
difficult for him to throw himself into the thoughts and 
feelings of persons who widely differed from him; and his 
straightforward simplicity made it equally hard to assume 
the show of sympathy when he did not feel it. 

Being unable (whether from general force of character, 
or from the weakness of a particular faculty, or from the 
natural connexion of these two circumstances, need not be 
determined) to put himself into sympathy with other men, 
he required all the more that other men should be, or else 
should place themselves in sympathy with him. Hence 
he could not easily make a close friend of anyone whose 
opinions set him at a distance. It was not, however, 
dogmatism or arrogance, or self-esteem, as some untruly 
supposed, that estranged the Archbishop from persons who 
diverged from him in sentiment, or led him to look coldly 
upon them from the first, but simply the absolute necessity 
for that sympathy which was, with him, an essential basis 
of friendship. Dr. Arnold is, I think, the only instance 
among his close and chosen friends of one whose opinions 
differed considerably from his own. But there was a 
thorough moral sympathy between the men that was 
quite strong enough to bridge over all differences. Arnold's 
intense love of truth and manly simplicity of character 
were thoroughly appreciated and loved by Dr. Whately. 

One of the Archbishop's examining chaplains was Dr. 
James Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Cork. He was a man 
of literary tastes, and a fair share of learning, and though 
no writer himself, his critical acumen was valued highly 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 431 

by the Archbishop. He had a certain dry humour which 
was a constant amusement to Dr. Whately, who enjoyed 
greatly the recollection and repetition of some of his 
sayings. 

Speaking one day of a newly risen sect of religionists 
who proscribed the use of animal food, the Archbishop 
said to Dr. Wilson, ' Do you know anything, Wilson, of 
this new sect ? ' — ' Yes, my Lord ; I have seen their con- 
fession of faith, which is a book of cookery.' 

On one occasion when Dr. W. was asked to subscribe 
his name to a testimonial in favour of some one whom he 
thought not very highly of, yet did not wish to refuse, and 
who had had his testimonial signed already by clergymen 
whose names carried small weight, he got out of his diffi- 
culty by writing, ' I know the value of the above signa- 
tures. Jas. Wilson. 5 But the Archbishop was too straight- 
forward himself to approve of this ruse, and, though 
amused, blamed Dr. Wilson for it at the time. 

I remember hearing Dr. Wilson give, in his driest way, 
a very entertaining account of an interview which he had 
one day with a lady who called at his own house. She 
wanted him to bring an appeal on her behalf before the 
Archbishop ; and stated her case with much eagerness and 
irrepressible volubility. Unable to stem the torrent, Dr. 
Wilson sat, rustic-like, waiting for the stream to spend 
itself, which, unlike Horace's river, it did at last. When 
the good lady, mistaking the Doctor's patient silence for 
conviction and consent, wound up her long and discursive 
harangue with the final appeal, ' Well now, I may depend 
upon you, Sir, to state all this to the Archbishop ? ' — the 
very unsatisfactory reply which she received was, ' Madam, 
I make it my business to intercept as many as possible of 
these communications.' 

Archbishop Whately was, at that time, very active, and 
used in the afternoon to take long walks with my father 
(then his chaplain). The Pydgeon House 1 Wall and 
Sandymount Strand were their favourite places of exercise. 

1 So properly spelt, being named from people of the name of ' Pydgeon.' 
who had a house of entertainment there in the last century. 



43i LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TTHATELY. 

On their way to the latter place they generally crossed 
over the river Dodder by a toll-bridge (since then re- 
moved). And it very frequently happened that neither 
the Archbishop nor Ms chaplain had enough money about 
them to pay the penny toll : so thev had to pass over the 
bridge on credit. I think two of the happiest periods of 
the Archbishop's life were when he was engaged in con- 
cert with my father in compiling the ' Lessons on Chris- 
tian Evidences/ and afterwards when in conjunction with 
Dr. Fitzgerald ( now Bishop of Killaloe ) he was writing the 
'Cautions for the Times.' He always enjoyed his literary 
'Occupations most when shared by one or two fellow- 
labourers. Some of the chapters in the Evidences were 
worked out in the course of walks upon Killiney shore 
with Dr. Dickinson, and with Archdeacon Eussell. the 
biographer of the Eev. Charles Wolfe. When Areh- 
leacon E. suggested to the Archbishop the chapter • On 
the Character of our Lord.' he said. 'Yes. a most important 
evidence indeed, but I know of only one man who could 
have treated that subject as it ought to be treated, and 
that is your friend Wolfe." He greatly admired this writer, 
and showed appreciation of his poetic and imaginative 
eloquence by frequently reciting those passages from bis 

•nions which he has quoted in his volume on ; Rhe- 
toric. 3 

In preparing his charges or addresses, he made it his 
constant practice to read what he had written to several of 
his friends, and to ask their judgments before publication. 
He was remarkably candid, and ready to listen to any 
sue^estion that might be made. He never slighted any 
emendation, however trifling, and never resented any 
criticism, however boldly offered. 

He was pre-eminently a man of ' major premises ' : and 
where his readers dissent from his conclusions, it is. in the 
majoritv of cases (I am inclined to think), in the minor 
premises that the difference will be found. In words that 
non-logicians will understand, his general principle is 
almost always true, while in his application of it to parti- 
cular cases there may be. now and then, something to 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 433 

question. In reducing such and such a case, thing, sub- 
ject, &c, to the class of which something has in the major 
premise been truly predicated, the soundness of the argu- 
ment will often depend upon a special knowledge of facts 
and details. An accurate acquaintance with these, or a 
close and critical investigation of them, would show per- 
haps that there is some particular circumstance essentially 
distinguishing the subject of the minor premise from the 
class (or description of things) under which it is proposed 
to reduce it. Almost always sound in his general prin- 
ciples, invariably logical in his conclusion, the flaw in 
the Archbishop's reasonings, where there is any, arises, I 
think, from his not knowing or overlooking some qualify- 
ing circumstance, the knowledge of which depended on 
faculties of minute and patient observation, which — ex- 
cept perhaps in the region of natural history — he did not 
very prominently possess ; or on familiarity with a certain 
kind of learning which he did not much care to cultivate. 
He was too wise to be far wrong in the general principle 
of his syllogism, too clearly and acutely logical to blunder 
in his conclusion : but he was, on some subjects, not deeply 
enough read to be quite safe against objection in his minor 
premise — what some logicians have called the Argument. 

Of his examinations for Holy Orders, his daughter has 
spoken in this memoir. 

He never received any candidate till he had first passed 
the examination of one of his chaplains. The object of 
this plan was a benevolent one. It was in order that none 
might be exposed to the pain of feeling and of reporting 
to his friends that he was rejected by the Archbishop ; for 
it was understood that the chaplain's preliminary exami- 
nation was quite a private one, and that in cases where he 
advised the candidate not to present himself without some 
further study, the recommendation was given in confi- 
dence, and the opportunity left to him accordingly of 
offering himself without prejudice, when better prepared, 
to the Archbishop. 

When the names of the candidates were given in, and 
they were reported as satisfactory, the Archbishop ap- 

F F 



434 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

pointed them to come three or four on each day. He 
gave them written questions to answer, and subjects on 
which to write short sermon outlines; receiving them 
separately into another room, where he and his chaplains 
sat round a table ; and always examining them one by one. 
This plan he preferred, both as more agreeable to the 
candidates and as testing the knowledge of each better 
than he thought could be done at an examination where 
the right answer may be gathered by one out of the misses 
of another. As for the candidates, I think the other plan 
would after all have been less formidable, if I may judge 
of others' feelings from my own. For, long and intimately 
as I had known the Archbishop before, I felt frightened 
enough at my own examination for Orders, in being the 
solitary object for his Grace and five or six more divines 
to look at and question, and I should have felt the pre- 
sence of my companions a very great relief. However, 
there was really nothing in the Archbishop's manner to 
alarm. He was an uncommonly patient and indulgent 
examiner, always giving the candidate full time to deli- 
berate, and with quick kindness catching the first ap- 
proach to a correct reply. In the latter years of his life, 
his hearing was imperfect, and his articulation less dis- 
tinct than formerly. It sometimes happened, therefore, 
that when he put a question, and found it not heard or not 
answered at once, he repeated it much louder than he was 
himself aware. This gave the impression of impatience, 
and if the candidate was not prepared for it beforehand, 
rather increased his nervousness. But it arose from the 
physical causes I have referred to. 

But, on the whole, I think his extraordinary love of 
teaching made him, in the same ratio, a rather less good 
examiner. He often forgot the examiner altogether in the 
teacher, and spent so long a time in explaining and in- 
structing, that by the end of an hour he had got much 
more into the candidate than he had got out of him. And 
I have seen him also much pleased with a candidate whose 
merit lay rather in being a quick and intelligent pupil 
than in the manifestation of any profound knowledge of 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 435 

his business. But the Archbishop would form his estimate 
of a man's general ability and intellectual fitness to 
teach more by the first of these tests than the second. 

He never would be persuaded to prescribe any course 
of books for his examination. 6 1 shall examine,' he would 
say. ' in the Bible and Prayer-book. Eead anything and 
everything, I don't care what, that will assist you to under- 
stand these two.' He used to scoff at what he was accus- 
tomed to call the secundum quern style of examination 
which is adopted in our universities. Yet, having written 
on all the theological subjects which he himself thought 
most important, it was impossible for him to keep clear 
of these when examining, and consequently a knowledge 
of Whately's writings would always serve a candidate 
materially in the Archbishop's examination. He never, 
however, required any of his own books to be read ; nor 
did he, in the least, care whether the knowledge of 
what he asked had been derived from him or from anyone 
else. 

He always made it a rule to examine very carefully in 
the Epistles. When he came over to Ireland he was asked 
to adopt a course of examination to which other Bishops 
had agreed. They had consented not to examine candi- 
dates for deacons' orders in the Epistles. The Archbishop 
asked, 'Are deacons then to be forbidden to 'preach from 
the Epistles during their diaconate ? ' — ' Oh ! no, certainly 
not : that is not contemplated.' — 6 Then,' answered his 
Grace, c if they are to be allowed to preach from them, it 
is as well to see whether they know them or not.' 

He had a sort of blunt common sense that would march 
straight on to a conclusion, brushing aside all theories and 
plausible reasons that might be offered to the contrary. 
This was sometimes rather provoking to people who came 
to him prepared to argue out a question, and found them- 
selves suddenly either compelled to see the matter in a 
strong light which had not heretofore presented itself, or 
to perceive that the Archbishop was not easily to be taken 
by surprise by any of the arguments they had provided 
themselves with. Xo matter how one might try to mystify 

F r 2 



436 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

the subject or to put it another way, the Archbishop would 
persistently turn his lantern upon it, and would not let any 
sophistry divert him from the one point which he believed 
conclusive. He always, indeed, would give a patient 
hearing to arguments on the other side, but with a pitiless 
sort of pertinacity he would force back the arguer to the 
main question, till he had left him no escape. He was a 
very impartial chairman at committee meetings and 
boards, securing to everyone a patient hearing. He was 
always very quick in seizing the salient point of a discus- 
sion, and showed the bent of his intellect in reducing a 
disputed question promptly, whenever it was possible to 
do so, under some general principle on which his mind 
had been made up. Whenever he could do this, he seemed 
to find it a relief from the consideration of details and 
minor points of which he soon grew weary ; and there was 
sometimes a difficulty in making him see that the parti- 
cular case did not come under the general principle so 
certainly as he supposed. But when the distinction was 
brought under his notice, no one could be more candid 
in reconsidering his first decision and allowing full 
weight to further arguments, clearly and fairly set before 
him. 

At public meetings he showed himself possessed of one 
rare and very enviable gift, which is, indeed, of much con- 
venience to a chairman. \Yhenever he was obliged to listen 
to a speech delivered in his presence, of which he did not 
feel approval, and did not wish to express ^approval, he 
had the faculty of looking as if he did not hear a word. 
He fixed his eyes on vacancy, and banished all expression 
of every kind from his face, so that people who peeped 
forward", curious to see ' how the Archbishop was taking 
it/ could gather as little from his countenance as if it had 
been carved out of stone. I remember observing this with 
much amusement at a certain public meeting, in the course 
of which one speaker made an harangue which was pre- 
eminently injudicious. He appealed to the Archbishop, 
every now and then, as cognisant of circumstances which, 
with singular indiscretion, he was detailing to the meet- 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 437 

ing, saying, 'Your Grace is aware of so and so; your 
Grace will recollect what I refer to,' and so forth. But 
his Grace evidently recollected nothing, and looked as if 
he were stone-deaf. I congratulated hiru, after the meeting, 
on his success, and asked him how he managed it. I think 
it was a half-unconscious art with him ; however, he seemed 
amused, and asked me, in reply, if I had ever heard a story 
of the late Lord Melbourne. Lord Melbourne (he told 

me) was in the House one evening, when stood up 

to speak on the Government side. The speech was a very 
indiscreet one ; the speaker dashed into topics about which 
Ministers would rather have had nothing said, and in the 
course of his remarks, turned towards the bench where 
Lord M. was sitting, saying, ' The noble Lord at the head 
of the Government is fully aware of the accuracy of what 
I state ; the noble Lord, having been present at the inter- 
view of which I speak, will bear his testimony.' The only 
answer from the Treasury bench was a loud snore. 

On oratory apart from logic the Archbishop set little 
value. A dull speech, if sensible and to the point, would 
meet a much more indulgent hearing and criticism from 
him than one that might, perhaps, bring to the platform 
thunders of applause. Of clap-trap he was intolerant. 
His presence, therefore, as chairman was felt an uncom- 
fortable sort of restraint by those who scarcely dared to 
hazard, in his unsympathetic hearing, their customary 
flights of Celtic fervour. In the presence of so acute a 
logician few could be brave enough to utter the unsub- 
stantial nothings or use ad captaiidum arguments. 



438 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELT. 



NOTES FE03I THE RECOLLECTIONS OF AS OLD OXFOEP 
PUPIL OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY'S. 



In figure. Whately was tall, some six feet high, and stout 
—not so much in flesh as in muscle and breadth of bone — 
and in his Alban Hall days, though not remarkable for 
graceful or majestic bearings he was at least a remarkably 
fine man. 

He was of fair complexion, pale, with light grey eyes. 
He had a long head, with flaxen hair, by no means in 
profusion. In Oxford he wore his trencher cap quite at 
the back of his head, with the foremost corner of the flat 
trencher pointing to the sky, in palpable variation from 
the usual style of academic attire. 

Of a frame peculiarly adapted for active exercise, stand- 
ing or walking about was Dr. Whatelv's most congenial 
condition, and the confinement of a chair for any long 
time seemed irksome to him. 

Temper. 

An Alban Hall man, one fine summer morning, called 
on him at his friend Mr. Seniors, in Kensington Gore, to 
solicit his good offices in some affair in which they were 
deemed advantageous, and was told by the man-servant 
that he had gone for his walk in Kensington Gardens. 
The applicant ventured to hunt the Archbishop in that 
wilderness, and after a long chase came across him, dressed 
for the day, in the broad avenue. He was not the least 
disturbed by the audience thus abruptly exacted from him 
in the open air, but cordially shook the intruder's hand, 
invited him to join in his walk, and continued in cheerful 
conversation with him till thy reached the steps of his 
friend's hall door. 

One morning, while still at Alban Hall, at his before- 
breakfast Euclid lecture, the principal began with — 
'Well, we left off with the 13th proposition, 6th book, 5 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 439 

and looking' towards the other end of the table, said, 
'Mr. Wilson, take the next — the 14th.' Wilson 1 began 
with, ' I am sorry to say, Sir, I am not prepared, having 
been at a little party last night.' 

'Well, then,' said the Principal, 'you, Mr. Preston, 1 
turning to a man on his right hand ; ' you go on.' 

' Upon nry word, Sir,' said Preston, ' it is very unfortu- 
nate : I am not prepared either, for I was at the same party 
with Wilson.' 

' Oh,' said the Principal, ' it will never do to lose time 
in this way ; take your pencil and go through the propo- 
sition with me.' And then, step by step, went the Principal 
through the proposition with Preston, from the ' TheoiV 
to the ' Q. E. D.,' and Preston, having been thus dragged 
through this new lesson, breathed thanks to himself that 
his mathematical lecture was over for that morning ; but 
to his astonishment, the Principal went on — ' W T ell, now 
you have mastered the proposition with me, let me hear 
you do it yourself;' and Preston, with mantled cheek, 
aching head, and faltering tongue, proceeded to do as he 
was bid, and though he had the Principal with smiling 
encouragement by his side as prompter, the result was 
anything but successful. 

Absence of Ceremony. 

In London, an Alban Hall man, happening to be in the 
City on a drizzling day, saw in the Court Circular the 
announcement of the arrival of the Archbishop of Dublin 
at the Brunswick Hotel, Hanover Square, and having a 
favour to ask of him, hastened, splashed and muddy as he 
was, to the porter of the hotel, and giving him his card, 
asked him to enquire at what hour he might hope for the 
honour of an interview. The porter went, and promptly 
returned with the unexpected message, 'the Archbishop 
will see you now.' The applicant had no choice, but was 
in his unpolished state of dress and unprimed state of 
mind, ushered into the drawing-room, where were as- 

1 The real names are suppressed. 



440 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. 

sembled the Archbishop, Mrs. Whately, and one of their 
daughters. The Archbishop, taking him by the hand and 
pointing to a chair, said, ' Oh, I am at your service without 
any appointment, 9 and the confused and bespattered visitor 
was at once plunged into the object of his audience. 

Benevolence. 

A married member of the Hall, remarkable for docility 
and diligence, had overrated his pecuniary competency, 
and had resolved to take his name off the books. He 
waited on the Principal, and communicated to him his 
determination and its cause. 'Ah,' said the Principal, 
' the great drawback of our hall is, that it is so poor an 
endowment. However, if some moderate help will keep 
you at your studies, I'll do this for you — I'll advance you 
100/. to be repaid without interest, when, and when only 
you, with perfect convenience to yourself, like to do so.' 

The generous offer was respectfully and gratefully 
declined by him, whom the Principal on a subsequent 
occasion called 'the coolest enthusiast he had ever met 
with.' But Whately's benevolence stands out to notice. 



NOTES BY W. BKOOKE, ESQ. 



'Children,' the Archbishop remarked, 'who have once 
seen a dog — say a terrier — will, if they meet a greyhound 
or spaniel, pronounce it at once to be a dog ; this occurs 
invariably, though there is less likeness between a grey- 
hound and a terrier, than between a horse and an ass. 
The characteristics of the dog are instantly recognised.' 

' The New Zealanders must have been greatly puzzled 
to find names for the quadrupeds as they were introduced 
from Europe. For a long time pigs only were known, in 
the island. They called a cow, a pig that gives milk ; and 
a horse, a pig that carries a man.' 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 441 

4 When larches were introduced into England during 
the last century, they were put into greenhouses. They 
of course withered, and the boxes which held them were 
thrown, with the plants, out on a dung-heap. There they 
grew into great trees. It was thought that, coming from 
the south of Europe, they would require warmth, forget- 
ting that they grew near the snow,' 

' The London rocket is a curious plant ; it appeared 
soon after the great fire of London, when whole acres of the 
city were reduced to embers and cinders. It came up 
directly through the ashes. The same thing occurred after 
continual burning and charring of trees in the Botanic 
Gardens. This has never been explained.' 

' When timber is felled, wood of a different kind 
succeeds : e. g, 3 when an oak forest is levelled there comes 
up larch, after larch poplar.' 



FEOM A EKIEND. 



I have been asked to add a few reminiscences of my 
own to this Memoir, and I cannot refuse to comply, for it 
was my privilege to know much of that gentler side of the 
Archbishop's character, which was best seen by those who 
were admitted into the inner circle of his varied life. They 
can testify to his patience under heavy domestic sorrow, 
and to his self-control. 

Ever ready to lay open the stores of his richly-filled 
memory, nothing pleased him more than to be asked a 
question by anyone who really desired information ; and 
his peculiarly happy method of impressing all that he 
taught upon the minds of those whom he instructed, made 
it a great pleasure to draw him out in this way, to ques- 
tion him, and even to be questioned by him — a process 
which invariably followed his giving any- reply. He would 
spare no pains to illustrate his meaning, nor to convey 



442 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

knowledge which was desired. One day he had to go some 
distance on very painful business ; but he did not forget 
that about a mile out of his way was to be found a rare 
shrub which his visitor from London had never seen, and 
he drove round to procure a branch to show her. 

With all his lack of ' veneration,' the Archbishop had a 
deep reverence for the Scriptures, and the doubts by which 
he lived to see them assailed were very painful to him 

even to hear of. ' Have you ever read, any of 's 

books ? ' he asked me one day, mentioning one of the 
leaders of the ' Doubting School.' I replied that I had 

not. ' Then do not read them,' he added ; ' if I were , 

I would deny the whole Bible at once ; that would be much 
less trouble than picking it to pieces as he is doing.' In 
1861, I was visiting the Archbishop's son-in-law and 
daughter at Shelford, and we visited the Geological 
Museum at Cambridge with him one day. On the way 
thither he had expressed a strong opinion against the 
6 Origin of Species,' which he had just been reading. 
When we came to the huge fossil of the Dinornis, in this 
Museum, turning to Mr. Wale, he exclaimed : ' I wonder 
how long it took for this fellow to develop from a mush- 
room ! ' 

His interest in the pursuits of his daughters was great. 
The music of one of those at home soothed and cheered 
him, while he had the power of listening ; and the sketches 
of the other were the source of much amusement and de- 
light. The Archbishop's inexhaustible flow of humour 
made him a constant peg upon which to hang all sorts of 
bad or revived jokes. 'The Archbishop's last' was a 
stock title for the Irish penny-a-liners, and he was fre- 
quently amused to see himself heralded forth as the author 
of some miserable pun or antiquated witticism. A well- 
known old joke thus appeared one day, and the Archbishop 
showed it to me, saying in a pathetic tone, ' I ought to 
walk about with my back chalked " Eubbish shot here." 
Few, however, of his sparkling utterances could be pre- 
served, for they were usually connected with circumstances 
of locality, or of individuals, which should be reproduced 



MISCELLANEOUS KECOLLECTIOXS. 443 

in order to see their full value. One I remember that 
amused us much at the time. A lady from China who was 
dining with the Archbishop told him that English flowers 
reared in that country lose their perfume in two or three 
years. ' Indeed ! ' was the immediate remark, ' I had no 
idea that the Chinese were such de-scent-ers.' 

' What are you doing ? ' the Archbishop asked a visitor 

one day. ' Writing for ' was the answer. 6 Very 

well/ he rejoined, 'use as few words as you can, and mind 
your similes.' But I must hasten on, lest I should seem 
to forget the first of those two concise rules. 

The morning of the day on which I arrived at Roebuck, 
on my visit in 1863, was the last on which the Archbishop 
was wheeled in to breakfast. I read to him during that 
meal, as I had so often done before, and in spite of his 
painful debility, he entered into the subject of the paper 
with great interest, interrupting me with questions or 
remarks, as formerly. On the morning on which the 
reading of his daughter's MS. of 'More about Ragged Life 
in Egypt ' was finished, he took his gold pen from his 
pocket, and giving it to her, said : ' I shall never use this 
again, M ; take it, and go on.' 

It was touching to see how clearly he recognised the 
approaching footsteps of death ; how calmly he resigned 
one object of interest after another, and patiently waited 
for the next indication of decay. His careful thought for 
others was shown in many ways, as long as he was able to 
make himself understood. ' Do not read to tire yourself, 9 
he was constantly saying. ' Is the guard on the fire ? ' he 
asked a few days before his death, when speaking had 
already become very difficult to him, 6 for I was afraid you 
went too near it. 5 

It was about that time that a clergyman from a remote 
part of Ireland called at the house. His name was not 
known to the daughters, and, Mr. Dickinson happening 
to be out, I was requested to see him. Apologizing for 
his intrusion, the gentleman said that he had come up in 
the hope of being permitted to see his Grace again. I 
hesitated, and then told him that the Archbishop could no 



444 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP TTHATELY. 

longer receive callers, and rarely now recognised any fresh 
face ; but our visitor urged his plea. ' The Archbishop 
educated my sons, and I would give anything to look at 
his face but once more.' I could not resist this, and I led 
him into the room. The Archbishop did not open his 
eyes, but to see him was all that the clergyman wanted; 
and after standing for a few minutes at his bed-side, with 
tears running down his cheeks, he left the house, and I 
found that the Archbishop's munificence had not been 
previously known to his family. 

The Sunday before his death he seemed unconscious, 
and I read Eomans viii. (a chapter for which he had asked 
more than once during his illness) by his side, not being 
quite sure, however, that he could hear or notice it. In- 
stinctively I read vv. 33, 34, as he had taught me to do, 
on a previous visit : ' Who shall lay any thing to the charge 
of (rod's elect? Is it God, that justifieth. Who is he 
that condemneth ? Is it Christ, that died,' &c. The eyes 
of the dying man opened for a moment, c That is quite 
right,' he whispered. 

A few days afterwards we stood round him, and saw 
him gently ' fall asleep,' leaving with us the lasting re- 
membrance of the upward look, and the bright and 
heavenly smile which, not many moments before, had 
illuminated his face. 

The newspapers of the day duly recorded the circum- 
stances of the funeral, and told of every shop being shut, 
one only excepted ; of the Cathedral being crowded as it had 
never been before ; and of such a concourse in the streets 
of Dublin as had not been known on any occasion of a 
similar kind. A little incident escaped them, which he 
would have noticed with great interest, in the case of any 
one else. 

The remains of the Archbishop were removed from 
Eoebuck to the Palace (between three and four miles off) 
on the evening of the day on which he died. On the 
morning of the funeral, a week afterwards, his little black 
dog ' Jet ' was missing. He was found on the steps of the 
Palace when the porter opened the door, between six and 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 445 

seven o'clock, and at once went to the room in which the 
body lay. He watched the preparations, and when the 
procession set forth, Jet took up his position under the 
hearse. In this way he accompanied the funeral to the 
door of the Cathedral, and when the coffin was carried iu, 
he left the place, and returned to Eoebuck. 1 

E. A. W. 



TO THESE XOTES THE WRITES ADDS A FEW 
EE3HXISCENCES OF HER OWN. 



All who have read any of my father's works will be 
aware of his careful attention to style. He would never 
allow a carelessly framed sentence to escape him; and 
even in ordinary familiar conversation the correctness and 
clearness of his manner of expressing himself was a cha- 
racteristic which could not fail to strike ordinary observers. 
His words in general might be taken down and written in 
a book as they fell from his lips, without any need of 
alteration or omission, so free was his discourse from the 
colloquial slip-slop expressions and the kind of short-hand 
elliptical manner of speaking so common in unconstrained 
familiar converse. 

Macaulay was his favourite modern historian, and in 
his Essays he took never-failing delight. He would repeat 
by heart whole passages from these essays, and from other 
favourite writers, which seemed to him to possess real 
eloquence, with a spirit and fervour which make these 
passages identified with his memory in the minds of all 
who knew him well. An apt and happy comparison 
always delighted him ; and his own peculiar excellence in 
this department seemed only to make his appreciation of 
others more lively. 

1 This dog is now in the possession of a friend near Dublin. 



446 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

He has been described as nearly destitute of poetical 
taste ; but this is not a fair representation of his mind. 
His taste in poetry was indeed somewhat limited^ but what 
he did like he enjoyed intensely. For the modern school 
of poetry he had little taste, we might almost say little 
toleration. Of the poetry of his own day, he was impatient 
of Wordsworth, and Byron he admired without taking 
pleasure in him. But for the poetry of Walter Scott he 
had an intense admiration. He would repeat long passages 
of the ' Lady of the Lake ' and ' Eokeby ' with a spirit and 
enthusiasm hardly to be exceeded. He delighted in 
Scott's ballads, border minstrelsy, &c, in the shorter 
poems of Campbell and Moore, and in Burns universally. 
His reading of some special favourites was a thing to be 
long remembered ; but the contemplative style of poetry 
had little charm for him, and of the didactic school he 
was positively impatient. Crabbe's ' Tales of the Hall' 
and 'Borough' were never- failing favourites. He did not 
like constantly reading aloud, but would often take a tale 
of Crabbe or a passage from Scott's poems, and read it 
with a life and expression which gave it quite a new cha- 
racter. ' The Parting Hour,' and the celebrated descrip- 
tion of the Felon's last sleep in the 6 Borough,' were 
peculiar favourites ; the latter he could not read without 
deep emotion and a faltering voice. 

Shakespeare was a never-failing favourite, and his read- 
ing of particular plays and passages was long remembered 
by his friends as a rich intellectual treat. 

Mr. Dickinson has noticed his intense desire for sym- 
pathy. Perhaps to this strongly marked characteristic 
may be referred also his dislike of others differing from 
him on matters of taste and feeling, as well as in opinions. 
This feeling may have led at times to the charge of in- 
tolerance, as it had sometimes practically the same effect; 
yet no one was more largely tolerant in principle. I have 
mentioned this peculiarity as perhaps accounting for some 
apparent discrepancies in his character. 

His knowledge of history was more varied and extensive 
than critically accurate. As was the case with all his 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 447 

pursuits, his memory for facts was retentive, whenever 
those facts could be brought to illustrate principles ; 
otherwise, as mere facts, he cared little for them. 

Of chronology and geography, he would say. 6 As they 
are called the two eyes of history, my history is stone 
blind.' This must be taken with some reservation. It is 
true he was not generally ready in remembering names 
and dates ; but anything which threw light on the history 
of mankind generally, or on any important principle, 
moral, political, or social, was eagerly seized and carefully 
retained in his memory. He took great interest in mili- 
tary affairs ; and entered even into the minute details of 
such changes in the art of war as might react on national 
history : even the description of warlike weapons and 
arms had a charm for him; and some of the female 
members of his family long remembered the disappoint- 
ment they felt, when at a breakfast at his friend Mr. 
Senior's, at which he and Lord Macaulay and Sir James 
Stephen were to meet, instead of the ' feast of reason and 
flow of soul' they had looked forward to, in the meeting 
of four such remarkable persons, the conversation ran 
during the whole time on the history of improvements in 
the implements of war, which, to the ladies of the party, 
could have little interest. 

The curious inventions of savages had a peculiar in- 
terest for him, and the pleasure he took in trying experi- 
ments with the Australian boomerang, the throwing-stick, 
&c, is remembered by all his friends. 

All that concerned the history of civilisation interested 
and occupied him ; and especially all that could throw 
light on his favourite axiom, that man could never have 
civilised himself ; from which it followed necessarily that 
civilisation was first taught to man by his Creator. 

But antiquities, as such, archaeological collections, and 
fragments of ancient literature, interesting only as ancient, 
had little charm for him. To this must be ascribed the 
indifference to Irish antiquities with which he has been 
reproached. That it did not arise from want of interest 
in his adopted country his whole life is sufficient proof. 



448 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

But many who sent him ' presentation copies' of works on 
these and other subjects were disappointed at receiving no 
distinct acknowledgment ; could they have taken a glance 
at his library table, and have seen the mass of volumes 
which were showered upon him week by week from various 
quarters, they would have needed no other reason for his 
silence. Had he acknowledged one, all must have been 
noticed, and the task would have been well-nigh sufficient 
to employ the entire time of a secretary. 

In the arrangements of his own private study there was 
a curious mixture of order and disorder. To outward eyes 
the contents of his library were thrown together in the 
most heterogeneous manner possible — books placed side 
by side without the least regard to size, binding, or sub- 
ject. But he always could find his way through the chaos 
to any book he wanted, and disliked interference with his 
arrangements, and, above all, an attempt to put his books 
to rights. 

His own literary labours were usually solitary. He did 
not like anyone, whether in or out of his immediate circle, 
to invade his sanctum. But after writing a memorandum 
for his Commonplace Book, or a note for a new edition 
of one of his works, he liked to bring it to his family and 
read it aioud to them. 



REMINISCENCES 
BY THE LATE EDWARD SENIOR, ESQ., P.L.C. 



In the year 1836, my regiment having been sent to 
Dublin, I saw a good deal of the Archbishop, both at the 
Palace and at Eedesdale. He was still misunderstood by 
the upper classes; they hated his politics, disliked his 
political economy, and were not favourably impressed by 
the total absence of pomp, and they dreaded his jokes. 

The Archbishop was to be seen to most advantage at 
Redesdale,with Blanco White, Arnold, and others — garden- 



MISCELLANEOUS RECOLLECTIONS. 449 

ing, tree cutting, and romping with his children and dogs. 
His fault perhaps was ' that he too much despised popular 
opinion, and let people find out that he laughed at their 
views.' 

In 1852 my duties took me to Dublin. The Archbishop 
had become known and trusted and honoured, especially 
for the perfect purity of his disposal of patronage, and the 
honesty of his convictions. Moreover, he had resigned 
his seat as a member of the Board of Education, though 
he continued to give it a qualified support. This with- 
drawal was very pleasing to a great body of his clergy. 

Time, moreover, had softened the Archbishop, made 
him less abrupt in manner, more dignified, more tolerant 
of the opinions of others, less hopeful, less active in politics : 
age, in short, had told on him, but with a light hand. 

Later, when paralysis had set in and domestic grief 
had bowed him down, I frequently met the Archbishop 
in Dublin. He was still cheerful, still clear-headed, still 
taking an active interest in the questions of the day, and 
still anxious to influence them for the best. His counte- 
nance had changed : a singularly noble and benevolent 
expression shone out as the earthly frame dissolved. He 
looked like a picture by one of the great old masters. I 
believe that all parties, Protestants and Soman Catholics, 
regretted his death, and that it was felt as a public loss. 
But he has left his mark on the opinions and habits of his 
clergy, who are themselves of the future generation, and 
the good that he did may, I hope, be said not to have died 
with him. 

It was known by his friends, that the whole of the in- 
come he derived from the see (with the exception of the 
expenses absolutely necessary to maintain his position) 
was entirely devoted to charitable objects, and the pro- 
motion of the welfare of the Church in his diocese. No 
man was ever freer from nepotism : his only son was never 
raised above the dignity of rector of a modest living in 
Dublin, and the provision he left for his family is little 
more than his private means would have admitted of his 
making. 

G G 



450 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 



TABLE TALK. 



I. Remarks on Public Life as a Test of Character. 

The following remarks are found in his Private Note- 
book, after some severe strictures on individual miscon- 
duct : — 

On looking back at what I have written, and observing 
how large a proportion of those I have mentioned I have 
been obliged to speak of with reprobation or contempt, it 
occurs to me to ask myself, How is this ? Is it that the 
world is really so much worse than most people think ? 
or that I look at it with a jaundiced eye ? On reflection 
I am satisfied that it is merely this, that I have been much 
concerned in important public transactions, and that it is 
in these that a man can render himself so much more and 
more easily conspicuous by knavery or folly, or misconduct 
of some kind, than by good conduct. ' The wheel that is 
weak is apt to creak.' As long as matters go on smoothly 
and rightly they attract little or no notice, and furnish, as 
is proverbial, so little matter for history that fifty years of 
peace and prosperity will not occupy so many pages as 
five of wars and troubles. As soon as anything goes 
wrong, our attention is called to it, and there is hardly 
anyone so contemptible in ability, or even in situation, 
that has it not in his power to cause something to go wrong. 
Ordinary men, if they do their duty well, attract no notice 
except among their personal intimates. It is only here 
and there a man, possessing very extraordinary powers, 
and that too combined with peculiar opportunities, that 
can gain any distinction among men by doing good. 

Inventas aut qui vitam excohiere per artes ; 
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo. 

But, on the other hand, almost everybody has both 



TABLE TALK. 451 

capacity and opportunities for doing mischief. ( Dead 
flies cause the precious ointment to stink.' A ploughman 
who lives a life of peaceful and honest industry is never 
heard of beyond his own hamlet ; but arson or murder may 
cause him to be talked about over great part of the king- 
dom. And there is many a quiet and highly useful clergy- 
man, labouring modestly inhis own parish, whom one would 
never have occasion to mention in any record of public 
affairs ; but two or three mischievous fanatics or dema- 
gogues, without having superior ability, or even labouring 
harder, may fill many a page of history. 

It is not therefore to be inferred from what I have 
written either that knaves and fools are so much more 
abundant than men of worth and sense, nor yet, again, that 
I think worse of mankind than others do, but that I have 
been engaged in a multitude of public transactions, in 
which none but men. of very superior powers, and not 
always they, could distinguish themselves for good, while, 
for mischief, almost everyone has capacity and opportuni- 
ties. 

As for those who take what is considered as a more 
good-humoured view of the world, and seldom find fault 
with anyone, as far as my observation goes, I should say 
that most of these think far worse of mankind than I do. 
At first sight this is a paradox ; but if anyone examine 
closely, he will find that it is so. He will find that the 
majority of those who are pretty well satisfied with men 
as they find them, do in reality disbelieve the existence of 
such a thing as an honest man — I mean of what really 
deserves to be called so. They censure none but the most 
atrocious monsters, not from believing that the generality 
of men are upright, exempt from selfishness, baseness and 
mendacity, but from believing that all without exception 
are as base as themselves, unless perhaps it be a few half- 
crazy enthusiasts ; and they are in a sort of good-humour 
with most part of the world, not from finding men good, 
but from having made up their minds to expect them to 
be bad. ' Bad, 9 indeed, they do not call them, because 
they feel no disgust at any but most extraordinary wicked- 

G g 2 



452 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

lies? ; but they have made up their minds that all men are 
what I should call utterly worthless ; and * having divided 
( as Miss Edgeworth expresses it i all mankind into knaves 
and fools, when they meet with an honest man. they don't 
know what to make of him.' Now he. who from his own 
consciousness is certain that there is at least one honest 
man in the world, will feel all but certain that there must 
be more. He will speak, indeed, in stronger terms of 
censure than the 'Other of those who act in a way that he 
would be ashamed of and shocked at in himself, and which 
to the other seems quite natural and allowable: but. on 
the other hand, if anyone does act uprightly, he will otive 
him credit for it. and not attribute his conduct ( as the 
:»ther will be sure to do : either to hypocrisy or to unac- 
countable whim, to a secret motive, or to none at all. So 
that, as I said, he who at the first glance appears to think 
the more favourably of mankind, thinks in reality the less 
favourably, since lie abstains from c ining of or 

blaming them, not from thinking them good, but from 
having no strong disapprobation of what is bad. and no 
hope of anything better. 

Most important is it. especially for young people, to be 
fullv aware of this distinction. Else they naturally divide 
men into those who are disposed to think well of men in 
general, and those disposed to think ill ; and besides other 
sources of confusion, will usually form a judgment the 
verv reverse of the right, from not thinking at all of the 
different senses in which men are said to think veil or 
to think ill of others. 

........ 

In short, one must make the distinction, which sounds 
very subtle, but is in truth great and important, between 
one who believes men generally to be what he thinks bad. 
and what is Vd\ lad : between one who approves, or 

does not greatly disapprove, the generality, according to 
his own standard; and one who thinks them such as we 
should approve. 



TABLE TALK. 453 



II. Public Men. 



Generally speaking, I should say that most public men 
I have known have rather a preference for such persons 
as have no very high description of intellect, or high prin- 
ciple, but who have understanding enough to perceive 
readily what is wanted of them by men in power, and who 
can be depended on to do it faithfully and unscrupulously, 
and to defend it with some plausibility : avoiding all such 
absurdities and blunders as might get their leaders into 
scrapes, but wearing winkers like a gig-horse to prevent 
their seeing anything which they have no business with. 
6 Xone are for me, that look into me with enquiring eyes ; 
henceforth I'll deal with ironwitted fools and unrespective 
boys.' 

One of the errors they are apt to commit in point of 
policy (to say nothing of higher considerations) is to for- 
get how incomparably more important service may be 
rendered them by a man of high intellectual and moral 
character, if he supports, suppose, only two out of three of 
their measures, than by all the third-rate or fourth-rate 
time-servers they can gather round them. A really able 
man, of unsuspected integrity and public spirit, carries 
more weight when he supports a Minister, than a whole 
shipload of such rabble as they usually prefer to him ; 
and when he does not support some measure, that very 
circumstance has at least the advantage that it proves him 
not to be unduly biassed, and consequently gives double 
importance to the support he does give in other matters. 

Another mistake they are apt to make as to the same 
point, is to suppose too hastily that the man will be as 
faithful to them as a dog, while he has no more notion of 
fidelity to the public and to the principles of rectitude 
than a dog has ; — that one who has no troublesome notions 
of honour and virtue to interfere with his being a time- 
server, will not leave his patrons in the lurch when he 
can advance himself by it. But they are apt, when any 
such thing occurs, to make a great outcry against treachery 
and ingratitude .... and they are apt, too, to take for 



454 LIFE OF AKCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

granted that a person of slender ability, not likely to rival 
them as an eminent statesman, or to criticise very power- 
fully their procedure, will not have cunning enough to 
outwit them and play them various tricks. If they were 
better read in Bacon's Essays, these might have shown 
them (and so might daily experience) how much cunning 
may be possessed by men otherwise of mean abilties. 

III. On Popular Admiration. 
The sort of admiration with which men such as 



are regarded in Ireland has always been a matter of per- 
plexing difficulty to me. Not that I have not often found 
a similar admiration gained in England by just such quali- 
ties as his — 'versus inopes rerum, nugaeque canorae' — but 
then fluent bluster and fine-sounding superficial declama- 
tion are what the English generally are not gifted with. 

The liking of the vulgar, whose tastes and intellect are 
uncultivated, for all kinds of tinsel is quite natural. But 
whatever liking savages may have for gaudy beads, they 
will never set a high value on them when very common 
and cheap ; and the great estimation of the English vulgar 
for such trumpery as Prospero put in the way of Caliba,n 
and his drunken comrades might be understood to pro- 
ceed from the scarcity among the English of fluent orators. 
But what has always puzzled me is that in Ireland, not at 
all less than in England, we always have from time to time 
certain ranting declaimers followed about and applauded 
by great multitudes, and yet to me, as a stranger, it seems 
as if three out of every four Irishmen could do nearly the 
same. And how a man can gain admiration for a talent 
so nearly universal is the puzzle. I suppose there is some 
much greater difference than I perceive ; and that their 
appearing to me so nearly on a par with each other is just 
like the mistake of those who being unused to negroes 
fancy they are all alike. . . But some kind of talent there 
must always be in everyone who accomplishes an object 
which many others would accomplish if they could, but 
cannot. 



TABLE TALK. 455 



IV. On the Education Committee in the House. 

It was an unwise thing in me to suffer my name to be 
on the Lords' Committee on the Irish Education Board. 
I made the mistake of supposing that the Lords really 
regarded it — as they ought to have done — as a delibera- 
tive, not as a judicial question; and that the great object 
of the Legislature of both Houses was to ascertain whether 
the system was working well for the country, and whether 
any better could be substituted. But they regarded it as 
a judicial question : the Opposition v. the Education Com- 
missioners ; with Ministry and their supporters engaged 
as advocates on the side of the latter, as feeling themselves 
bound to support the men and the measures they had 
brought forward. But the Ministers themselves seemed 
to think they were doing something of a favour to the 
Commissioners in giving them their support and grants of 
public money; and all supporters as well as opponents of 
Ministers spoke in a tone as if they thought that Par- 
liament had been doing us the favour, in being so good as 
to allow us to burden ourselves with a toilsome office for 
the public good. 

3 accordingly, when he spoke on one occasion of the 

unfairness of placing me on the Committee, as if to be 
a judge in my own cause — as if I had any personal in- 
terest in the matter — absurd as his remarks intrinsically 
were, did not depart much from the notion afloat in the 
House. 

Unaware at the time of this kind of feeling in the 
House, I allowed myself to be placed on the Committee, 
instead of offering — as I ought to have done — to be exa- 
mined as a witness. 

I remember not long after this, Lord Anglesey met 
me in the lobby, and was talking about the evidence 
that had been given, and mentioned to me, that he 
(who had been Lord -Lieutenant at the time of my ap- 
pointment to the see of Dublin) had offered himself as 
a witness, but had been refused. ' I should have liked, 5 
said he, ' to have had an opportunity of stating what I 



456 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP W^HATELY. 

should have thought of the man who would have dared 
to propose conditions to your Grace.' That man knew 
me. 

V. On Lord Melbourne as a Statesman, 

After all, Lord Melbourne's plan was to let everything 
alone, good or bad, till forced to make a change. He was 
the highest Conservative I ever knew. For he was not like 
many so-called, who have really persuaded themselves that 
such and such alleged abuses are really good ; he saw in 
many cases, and has often pointed out to me, the evils of 
such and such institutions ; adding, however, that he was 
very sorry they should ever have been meddled with : 6 1 
say, Archbishop, all this reforming gives a deuced deal of 
trouble, eh ? eh ? I wish they'd let it all alone.' Any 
change, in whatever department, was to him so much 
greater an evil than the continuance of any abuse that he 
would always avoid it if he could. But then he had, which 
most Conservatives have not, shrewdness enough to per- 
ceive when it was unavoidable, and then he always wel- 
comed it with so much gladness that many people were 
alarmed with a dread of his going too far ; and thus he 
offered the most effectual check to innovations. For John 
Bull becomes furious at a very obstinate opposition to 
some change, which he conceives called for ; but if it is 
readily granted, the innate conservatism of the nation is 
called forth very strongly. He is like a restive horse, which, 
if you turn his head away from the ditch he is backing 
towards, and whip and spur him from it, will back the 
more violently ; but if you turn him towards it, and seem 
rather to urge him that way, will shrink from it. Lord 
Melbourne took the latter mode. Yet though he thought 
with the Tories, and acted with the Whigs, I always vin- 
dicated him from the charge of inconsistency. A man is 
not a traitor for surrendering a town to the enemy when 
untenable, instead of waiting to have it stormed and 
sacked ; though in so doing he is acting with those who 
wish the enemy to have possession of it, while his feelings 
and wishes are with those who are for holding out and 



TABLE TALK. 457 

dying in the breach. He differed from the Whigs in de- 
precating all changes, good or bad ; he differed from the 
(other) Tories in conceding readily what he saw to be in- 
evitable. Yet this man will probably go down to posterity 
as a zealous reformer ! A monument to Sir Robert Peel 
and the Duke as the authors of Catholic emancipation and 
free trade and the Maynooth grant, and to Lord Melbourne 
as the friend to parliamentary reform, tithe reform, the 
Irish Temporalities Act, and the abolition of slavery, these 
should certainly stand side by side, and a most laughable 
pair they would be. 'I say, Archbishop, what do you. 
think I'd have done about this slavery business, if I'd had 
my own way ? I'd have done nothing at all ! I'd have left it 
all alone. It's all a pack of nonsense ! Always have been 
slaves in all the most civilised countries ; the Greeks and 
Romans had slaves ; however, they would have their fancy, 
and so we've abolished slavery ; but it's great folly, &c.' 
And this was the general tone of his conversation, and a 
specimen of his political views. 

VI. On the Duke of Wellington's Administration. 

Speaking of the Duke's being made Chancellor of Ox- 
ford : — 

' When Fortune,' says Cicero, ' thrusts us into situations 
for which nature has not adapted us, we must do our best 
to perform the part as little indecorously as we can.' But 
when a man thrusts himself into them, a failure, even 
when it would otherwise have been very pardonable, ex- 
poses him to just contempt. 

The Duke of Wellington exposed himself to derision for 
not having been able to repeat the Latin phrases put be- 
fore him, without making false quantities, on being ap- 
pointed Chancellor of the University of Oxford, though 
there is many an able military and naval commander who 
could make no better hand of it, and who deserves no con- 
tempt at all, because he does not court or accept any such 
office. And if I were to accept the command of a troop of 
cavalry (which, in jest, I asked Lord Wellesley to confer on 



458 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

me at that time), I should richly deserve scorn for being un- 
horsed, as I dare say I should be, in the first charge. But 
there was something more inconsistent in the zeal with 
which he entered into the persecution, and refused to 
witness in behalf of Hampden, when appealed to against 
the utterly illegal proceedings that were going on. He 
was just equally inflexible to the applications (during the 
negotiations for the general peace) of the Vaudois, for some 
interference to mitigate the persecution they were exposed 
to ; and again, to all the claims of the Roman Catholics for 
civil rights ; and again, of the Jews ; till he found it con- 
venient to yield to popular opinion and bring forward 
those measures himself. It is all perfectly consistent. 
He is most impartial to all religions. Those who are the 
strongest in each country are, in his view, justified in 
putting down and keeping down all other religionists as 
long as they can ; and the inferior party have nothing to 
do but submit, and either profess whatever religion is 
established, or contentedly to let themselves be trampled 
on till they are strong enough ; and then let them turn 
the tables if they can. ' Vae victis ' is his motto. And I 
never knew anyone avow the principle more frankly. In 
the debate on the Jews' Relief Bill (when it was thrown 
out), in replying to me, and among other things to my 
introduction of the parallel case of the Roman Catholic 
Relief Bill, he denied the parallel, ' because,' said he, 
e there was " a necessity " in that case and not in this.' 
And, indeed, in most of his speeches he used to take every 
opportunity of rather boasting than not of his readiness to 
grant anything to intimidation, and nothing without ; 
although it is curious to observe the contrast between his 
military and his political career, and also the high admi- 
ration bestowed by a large number, at least, on both. 
What degree of ability he showed in each is a matter of 
opinion; but his extraordinary success in the one, and 
his uniform failure in the other, is a matter of fact. To 
me it seems that the analogous course to that which he 
pursued in politics would, in his campaigns, have in- 
sured him the like defeats; in this I may be, perhaps, 



TABLE TALK. 459 

mistaken ; but at any rate he did succeed in war, and in 
the field of civil government he most signally failed. I 
remember that of two different persons, both men of sense, 
(Senior was one), to whom I made the remark, each re- 
joined that there was an exception to the list of his failures ; 
his carrying through the difficult measure of the Emanci- 
pation. On each occasion I expressed my astonishment 
at this being reckoned an instance of success, which I 
had been reckoning among his most remarkable defeats. 
Heaven send all my enemies such success ! He had utterly 
disapproved of the measure all along; he did not at all 
cease to disapprove it ; he granted it with a thoroughly 
bad grace; and gave way because he found, to use his 
own expression, 6 there was a necessity. 5 But still it is to 
be reckoned among his great actions, because, forsooth, he 
did it himself, and, moreover, showed great skill in 
managing the details of the measure ! I replied, that if 
instead of maintaining himself in the lines of Torres 
Vedras, he had found himself obliged to abandon them, 
and had accordingly destroyed his magazines to prevent 
their falling into the enemy's hands, spiked his cannon, 
shot his horses, and embarked his army in safety, though 
he might have received credit for doing the work well, it 
would hardly have been reckoned among his triumphs. 
Now just such was the exploit of carrying, as it was called, 
the great measure of Emancipation. If he had carried 
matters in the same way in war, the French would soon 
have cleared the Peninsula of us. 

And, after all, it was done in such a way as to create 
no gratitude in the parties benefited ; for which, by-the- 
bye, they are often reproached; but who could suppose 
them such fools as to be grateful to those who granted 
what they lacked power to refuse, and who never even 
attempted to make a virtue of necessity, but always pro- 
claimed that it was 'by force and against their will. 5 One 
might as well be grateful to an ox for a beef-steak. But 
to O'Connell, whom they regarded as the butcher that felled 
the ox, the Irish have always been even over-grateful. 

The tone that the Duke always assumed was that of 



460 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

apologising to his own original party for a step which was 
as disagreeable to him as to them. And yet after all he 
was so far from pacifying them, that they punished them- 
selves, to be revenged on him, by turning him out for 
revenge sake. It was not his own fault that he did not 
obtain another such triumph by passing the Eeform Bill ; 
which he offered to do, but could not find support. This, 
which, next to Emancipation, he had always most strenu- 
ously opposed, was carried in spite of him ; and free trade, 
his other great aversion, is opening its buds, and will 
come into flower probably in his own time ; and this 
measure also he has c carried.' 

He has, indeed, always proved a considerable impedi- 
ment to every measure he disliked ; but he has been 
always defeated on every point, though always making a 
fight ; and moreover, while he always in war foresaw and 
made timely provision for, a retreat, when necessary, in 
politics he has always maintained his position to the last 
moment, and then surrendered at discretion. 

VII. On yielding to Popular Clamour. 

To yield readily whatever is just (whenever it can be 
done with safety to the public and without detriment to 
the very persons sought to be benefited), and firmly to 
resist unjust claims, this, simple as it seems, is the course 
which, in a country like Ireland, is the most difficult to 
be steadily adhered to. 

The difficulty arises in the case of a people who have 
been so very ill-governed as to have become brutalised 
and degraded in character, A little injustice, a short 
continuance of a grievance, may serve to quicken a per- 
son's perception and abhorrence of what is wrong, but a 
long continuance of it debases the character, and produces 
selfishness, ferocity, craft, and cruelty, combined. If a 
man loses, as Homer says, ' half his virtue the day he be- 
comes a slave,' he is likely, if he long continue one, to lose 
most of the other half. Never was there a popular and 
admired remark more remote from truth than Sterne's on 



TABLE TALK. 461 

the negro slave: ' She had suffered persecution, and had 
learnt mercy.' There cannot be a worse school, at least 
to remain long in, for the learning of mercy. It is found 
that slaves make the severest slave masters ; and those who 
have been the worst treated, as slaves, the worst masters ; 
among, others, the boys who have been the most cruelly 
fagged at school are observed to be generally the cruellest 
fag masters. 

Now the result of all this is, that ninety-nine out of a 
hundred are completely under the dominion of one of two 
errors; either from perceiving the debased, crafty, feroci- 
ous spirit, and the folly and ignorance of those who have 
been very long oppressed, they thereupon lose all sym- 
pathy for them, and consider them as deserving a continu- 
ance of brutal treatment, because they have been brutalised 
by it; or else, sympathising with them on account of the 
injustice they have suffered, they are thence led to think 
well of them, and trust them. A man of more goodness 
of heart than strength of head is apt, in such a case, to 
put himself in the place of the sufferers, and consider 
what an abhorrence of injustice and cruelty he would feel, 
retaining those just and humane sentiments which he 
actually has, but which they have lost. And thence he 
will be for setting them quite free, and leaving them to 
right themselves and help themselves to what they will, 
and govern themselves as they please. I have always said, 
on the contrary, that if a persecuted or enslaved people 
did retain a proper sense of justice, did remain fit for 
complete self-government, then I should not think perse- 
cution and oppression near so great evils as I do think 
them. The moral and intellectual degradation they pro- 
duce are among the chief of their attendant evils. But 
from both the one and the other of the above two errors 
few are found exempt. Generally speaking, the Tories 
fall into the former, and the Whigs into the latter, e.g. at 
the outbreak of the French Eevolution one finds the Tory 
writers advocates of the old regime, and deprecating all 
the innovations and pointing out how unfit for liberty and 
self-government the French people showed themselves, and 



462 LIFE OF AECHBISHOP WHATELY. 

the Whigs, till fairly frightened out of their wits, exultino- 
in the brilliant prospects opening on France from the unre- 
stricted licence of a people so long oppressed. These latter 
were often converted, by the horrors of the .Revolution, into 
the former. Sir James Mackintosh seems in a great degree 
to have gone through these two stages. The long-oppressed 
and now liberated people began by destroying their oppres- 
sors, and then the whole class they belonged to, and then 
all advocates of moderate measures, and lastly, one 
another. So it was with the negroes in Hayti. So it is, 
and ever will be, says Thucydides, 'as long as human 
nature remains the same.' And those who cannot learn 
from him cannot learn from experience. For with all the 
examples of history before us, the genuine Tories are for 
bringing back the penal laws or other restrictions in 
Ireland, and the Whigs are for either repealing the Union 
or letting the Irish Roman Catholics have quite their own 
way. 

The most difficult of tasks is the cautious and gentle 
removal of an oppressive yoke, and the imparting of 
freedom and power to men, as they are able to bear it. 
It is more like the feeding of the famished than anything 
else. It is easy to say, c This man's stomach is not in a 
good state for digestion, therefore give him nothing,' or 
' The man is hungry, set him down to a full table.' In 
the one case he dies of famine, in the other of a surfeit. 
In like manner, it is a very easy and coarse and clumsy 
procedure to go on treating as children or as brutes those 
who have been long oppressed, and to repress by main 
force all attempts on their part to free or to elevate them- 
selves, and the result is that, at the best, you keep a 
certain number of your fellow- creatures degraded into 
brutes ; at the worst, that a sudden explosion takes place, 
and you have a sort of servile war, or jacquerie. It is 
equally simple and easy to throw the reins on the neck of 
an unbroken horse. France, even in the memory of 
people now living, has furnished examples of both these 
plans, and their results. But a large portion of mankind 
are incapable of learning from experience. 



TABLE TALK. 463 

VIII. On the Protestant Church in Ireland. 

The establishment of a Protestant Church in Ireland, 
which by many thoughtless Liberals and designing dema- 
gogues is spoken of as a burden to the Irish nation, and 
which the ultra- Protestants speak of as nothing to be at 
all complained of by the mass of the people, should be 
viewed, though no burden, yet as a grievance, as being an 
insult. The real burden to the Roman Catholic population 
is one which they are not accustomed to complain of as 
such : the maintenance of their own priests. And, in like 
manner the Orangemen have been accustomed (as Senior 
has justly remarked in his 'Review on Ireland, in ' The 
Edinburgh ') to defend the insult on the ground that it is 
no injury, and the injury on the ground that it is no in- 
sult. They say, and truly, that the support of the Esta- 
blished clergy is no burden, and again, that it is no degra- 
dation to the people to maintain, as the Dissenters in 
England do, their own clergy. 

And they have an advantage in maintaining this fallacy, 
inasmuch as their opponents complain of that as a burden 
which is not the real burden. Misled by this, the Whig 
ministers thought to give satisfaction by lightening the 
burden — when in fact there was no burden at all — by 
diminishing the revenues of the Church. Whereas, if you 
were to cut off three-fourths of the revenues, and then 
three-fourths of the remainder, you would not have ad- 
vanced one step towards conciliation, as long as the Pro- 
testant Church is called the National Church. The mem- 
bers of our communion here should be a branch of the 
English Church, just as there is one in India, or in any 
other of our foreign possessions. No one talks of the 
Church of India, or of the c United Church of England, 
Ireland, and India.' And there is no jealousy or dis- 
pleasure excited, as there probably would be if the Hindoos 
and Mussulmans, and Parsees and Roman Catholic 
Christians, &c, were told that ours is the ' National 
Church 5 in their country. In advocating Catholic Eman- 
cipation and the payment of the priests (not, as puzzle- 



464 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TTHATELY, 

headed bigots are accustomed to say, by a Protestant 
government, but out of the revenues of a nation, partly 
Protestant and partly Romish — revenues to which both 
contribute, and in which both have a right to an equitable 
share), and in supporting the system of schools, at which 
all should be bond fide admissible without doing violence 
to the conscience of parents, who have already, by the law 
of the land, had conceded to them the right of educating 
their children in their own faith. In all this I and those 
who thought with me were considered as half Papists 
or Latitudinarians by one party, while by the other, the 
so-called Liberals, we were considered as most whimsi- 
cally inconsistent for our steady opposition to Roman 
Catholic principles. 

IX. On the Employment of Time. 
had been speaking of the very great difference in 



the kind and amount of the talents with which different 
men are intrusted; and added that there was one which 
all had an equal measure of, their time. I took the 
liberty of remarking to him that though this at first 
sounds even self-evident, it is not true when one comes to 
reflect; for the twenty-four hours pass every day to all 
men alike, whether they are asleep or awake, sick or well. 
In this sense time is no talent at all; it is so only in 
respect of the quantity of vital energy, of power to act, 
that each person enjoys; and in this there is hardly any 
kind of talent more unequally distributed, the quantity 
of daily exertion that men are capable of being very 
different. 

I also ventured to criticise a passage where he was 
saying, in speaking of the recreations of clergymen, that 
there must be something very bad, morally, in any man 
who was not made quite cheerful and happy by looking 
at the fields and the sunshine, &c. Knowing, as I did, 
that good men are not exempt from morbid depression of 
spirits any more than from other diseases and trials of 
various kinds, I deprecated the cruelty of loading them 



SKETCH OF HIS CHARACTER. 465 

with the additional burden of harsh judgments. He took 
my criticism very fairly, and did not deny that there was 
something in what I said. 



SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY, 
BY ONE WHO HAD KNOWN HIM INTIMATELY AND 
OBSERVED HIM CLOSELY. 



In the following sketch our aim has been to paint this 
remarkable man as he was, with his faults as well as his 
excellences. It is, in fact, by such an impartial por- 
traiture that the true greatness of a man's character stands 
out in the fullest relief, if he be truly great. We cannot 
truly appreciate him without taking a view of the natural 
defects and hindrances against which he had to struggle ; 
and thus a picture taken with all lights and no shades, 
cannot really do justice to its subject. 

It is no small confirmation of the truth of the general 
principles of phrenology, that when a plaster cast of 
Archbishop Whately was put into the hands of a phrenolo- 
gist, who knew nothing of the person from whom it was 
taken, he not only gave a generally correct character of 
the Archbishop, but dwelt specially on one quality which 
certainly was the leading feature in his mind. This was 
what in phrenological language is called the organ of 
concentrativeness, an organ which, though it lies at the 
base of the head, is said to exercise a peculiar influence 
over all the other organs, both moral and intellectual. It 
is described by phrenologists as the power of bringing all 
the energies to bear on a given object, and to act on all 
the mental faculties as a burning glass to the sun's rays, 
gathering them all into a focus. This quality formed the 
keystone of Archbishop Whately's character ; it coloured 
his whole mind, and to it he owed most of his excellences, 
and also of his defects, moral and intellectual. His mind 

H H 



466 • LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TVHATELY, 

was always engrossed with some one principal object, to 
the exclusion of others, so that he could see but little of 
the by-play of life. It was this which was in some measure 
the cause of that abruptness of manner and occasional im- 
patience and want of attention to the minor courtesies of 
life, which has been so often remarked in him. 

There were, however, other causes also to account for 
these peculiarities; by nature he was not only reserved, 
but shy and timid, and this, as has been observed in the 
memoir, was increased in his youth by the injudicious en- 
deavours of his friends to counteract it. 

Intimately connected with the turn of mind we have 
described, was his utter indifference to rank, position, titles, 
and worldly honours in general. The writer of an article 
in a contemporary journal showed an utter want of com- 
prehension of Archbishop Whately's character, when he 
suggested that the dignity and honours of his office bad 
been an inducement to enter on its responsibilities. He 
had, in fact, a dislike to all restraints and barriers, physi- 
cal and moral, and it was carried out even into the minutest 
details. He disliked an arm-chair, because it impeded the 
free movement of his arms ; he disliked a country broken 
up with walls, fences, and hedgerows, and preferred the 
most desolate and uninviting moorland, if it were but 
open. Even in his dress this impatience of restraint was 
manifested ; he abjured stiff collars, starch, and tight gar- 
ments of all kinds. And the same disposition was carried 
into social life ; but it is fair to state that these breaches 
of 'bienseance' were only in minor details; in higher 
matters, both principle and instinctive feeling kept him 
from everything that could in any way derogate from his 
character as a gentleman ; and that he was capable of the 
truest and most delicate courtesy, all who knew him 
could testify. And the simple dignity with which he took 
part in any important ceremonial, religious or secular, has 
often been remarked. 

Little as many would have suspected it, 6 love of appro- 
bation,' to use the phrenological term, was a characteristic 
of his mind, though he never allowed it to influence his 



SKETCH OF HIS CHARACTER. 467 

conduct in public life, and in the course of years grew 
less sensitive to the opinion of the world than he had 
been in early life ; but he never became as indifferent to it 
as people imagined. He clung with a tenacious firmness 
to those who could sympathise with him and coincide 
with his views (or who professed to do so), and this was 
perhaps one of his few earthly consolations in stemming 
the stream of popular opinion. 

And if this tendency did not influence his conduct in 
small matters, this was rather because his mind was one 
which habitually overlooked minor details. It was a curious 
apparent inconsistency, that with all this carelessness of 
conventionalities, there were certain points of etiquette on 
which he was rigidly scrupulous. Having once made up 
his mind that these points must not be neglected, he 
brought his whole vast energy of mind to bear on these 
small matters, just as he would have done in carrying out 
some great principle. It was an effort seldom made, from 
the expenditure of force it necessitated. It was like 
bringing a powerful steam engine to do a work which 
could be done with the hand. So again in the matter of 
dress, in which he had been very negligent in his early 
years ; having made up his mind, when entering on his 
episcopal office, that his position required some attention 
to this point, he rigidly adhered to the received standard, 
and no one of his family can remember ever seeing him 
carelessly or shabbily dressed. Still, his petty neglects in 
social matters did certainly tend to diminish his influence. 

By nature, as he always himself owned, he was prone 
rather to yield than to resist ; but his concentrative powers 
enabled him to bring all his force of character to counter- 
act this defect on all important occasions ; in small things, 
and when he was off his guard, the tendency might occa- 
sionally be observed. He always acknowledged himself to 
be by nature morally, if not physically, timid, and when 
taken by surprise and in little things, this disposition 
could be perceived. But whenever he had time to collect 
himself, he could face physical danger with perfect calm- 
ness, and stand unmoved by the most violent opposition ; 

HH 2 



468 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

but in the latter case no one knew the effort it cost him. 
Nothing on this side the grave, he himself often said, 
could compensate for the struggle he underwent in stem- 
ming the tide of public opinion. Again, he was by nature 
irritable, and this was often shown in trifles, though much 
was sometimes attributed to this, which in fact was caused 
by his concentrativeness leading to carelessness about his 
tone and manner, and also causing a kind of impatience 
of everything which could impede the execution of his 
orders, or hinder the object he had in view. But in 
public affairs, and indeed whenever he had time to brace 
himself for an effort, his control over his temper was 
perfect. It may, perhaps, have been from the knowledge 
that this self-restraint was not natural or easy to him, that 
on certain points he entrenched himself behind an array 
of distinctly defined rules or general principles, which 
were to him as a fortress, within which he was impreg- 
nable. He did not multiply these rules, but, once laid 
down, he adhered to them steadily. His intellect, like 
his moral character, derived its colour mainly from the 
concentrative faculty alluded to ; aud here, again, both his 
excellences and defects arose mainly from this source. 
The capability of continuous thought it gave him made 
his reasoning powers more effective, and often enabled him, 
as it were, to hunt down his game like a ' slow-hound," 
where more rapid thinkers than himself would be baffled. 
He learnt slowly, as he always declared, both in logic 
and mathematics : but his superiority in the first is un- 
contested: while in the latter, though not a first-rate 
scholar, he was a first-rate teacher, as he was also in his 
own special department of logic. To a certain extent he 
was also a patient teacher: that is, he was patient of 
slowness, in which he could sympathise ; but with in- 
attention he had neither sympathy nor patience, and did 
not fully allow for the unequal powers of attention 
possessed by different learners. As might be expected 
from his peculiar cast of mind, he was not hasty in form- 
ing his judgments ; and his arguments, though they might 
fail in establishing the conclusions he drew, could scarcely 



SKETCH OF HIS CHARACTER. 469 

be called, strictly speaking, inconclusive. The point in 
which he did fail, and through which he was sometimes 
led into error, was the want either of power or inclination 
to carry out the process of induction with sufficient dili- 
gence, copiousness, and exactness. Had he been a judge, 
he would, but for the extreme cautiousness and great 
benevolence of his nature, have been led to condemn a 
criminal on an insufficient amount of circumstantial evi- 
dence; and certainly in his judgments of individuals he 
did occasionally condemn them on too slight grounds, or 
more severely than the case warranted. He needed to be 
reminded, both in his moral and intellectual estimates of 
men, that we cannot define a character after the fashion 
of Cuvier, who could by a single bone determine the class 
of animals to which it belonged. Men's minds and cha- 
racters cannot be mapped out in these sharply defined 
outlines; and this Archbishop Whately sometimes over- 
looked in his estimates of literary merit. To quote one 
instance, among many, he undervalued Carlyle, and too 
hastily concluded that all his success was owing to the 
novelty and peculiarity of his style. 

Still his inductions were always just as far as they went ; 
the only fault was, that the body of evidence brought 
forward was sometimes not sufficient as a basis for the con- 
clusions they were intended to establish. And this was 
the more to be regretted, because, when his opinions were 
thoroughly matured and decided on any point, he seldom 
changed them ; scarcely ever on moral and religious mat- 
ters, or on questions of pure taste. In scientific matters he 
was more ready to alter his mind, and quite late in life he 
changed his views on several points of the kind, when 
fresh evidence had been brought before him. But if his 
opinions were rarely changed, they were slowly formed, 
and no one could be more candid in giving full weight to 
his opponent's objections, or more impartial in viewing 
both sides of the question. But when once his mind was 
made up, he ceased to look on the other side, and if fresh 
arguments or objections were brought forward, he seemed 
unable steadily to contemplate them. 



470 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 

With regard to the poetical element, his mind was singu- 
larly constituted ; he had a vein of poetry running through 
his nature, but it was neither deep nor wide ; the stream 
was pure and the current strong, but its confines were nar- 
row, and its bed shallow, and it never overflowed its banks, 
All the poetry he did like, he enjoyed intensely; but his 
range, as has been elsewhere observed, was very limited, and 
for the contemplative and spiritual kind of poetry he had no 
taste. His vein of poetry was kept, as it were, completely 
separate from the other parts of his mind, and it rarely 
gave a colour to his prose writings. His comparisons and 
similes were indeed abundantly poured forth ; but if they 
were poetical, it was unconsciously so. Both his judgment 
and taste led him to keep the line of demarcation between 
his poetry and prose very strongly defined. This explains, 
in some measure, that peculiarity of his mental structure 
which gave rise to the remarks of his reviewers, ' that he 
did not seem to understand the mysteries of our nature ; ? 
which, translated into ordinary language, means that he 
did not recognise any mode of arriving at truth except 
through the medium of the reason. He did not see the 
spiritual side of things (I am not using the word in a 
religious sense) — 

A primrose on the river's brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more. 

But I am not sure that the reviewers were right in 
speaking of this as a defect. It is no defect in a quadru- 
ped that he cannot fly. His whole structure is adapted 
for a different sphere; and so it was with the mind of 
Dr. Whately ; and more than this, it is probable that the 
immense power of his reasoning faculties might have been 
impaired, and the keen edge of his logic blunted, had he 
possessed more of those other powers, which, though not 
incompatible with, seldom coexist with a large develop- 
ment of the reasoning powers. 

It cannot be denied that his writings and discourses 
would have been more popular, had he possessed more of 



SKETCH OF HIS CHARACTER. 471 

that faculty which I have called ' spiritual perception ' for 
want of a better name. It is not indeed highly developed 
in most men, but I think there are few so devoid of it as 
to be entirely satisfied with mere reasoning — whatever 
they want, they generally do want something to relieve 
the constant labour of passing from premiss to conclusion. 
It must have been this want which was felt in Archbishop 
Whately's writings, for apart from it they had many 
elements of popularity ; his meaning was clear as crystal, 
and the combined energy, vivacity, and perspicuity of his 
style, caused it to be rightly compared to champagne, so 
that after reading his writings the works of most other 
writers appear flat and dead. 

Though equalled by few in the variety and extent of 
information he possessed, there were few subjects which 
he had so completely mastered as to be able to found a 
system on them. 

For both chemistry and mechanics he had, indeed, a 
great natural aptitude, and if he had had leisure or occa- 
sion to devote himself exclusively to either of these de- 
partments, he might have risen to eminence in them. As 
it was, the vast store of facts he had collected, both on 
these and on other subjects — scientific, literary, geogra- 
phical, &c, supplied him with an endless fund of illustra- 
tions, analogies, and instances in confirmation of general 
principles laid down. 

In conclusion, it may be said of him, more than perhaps 
of most of the master spirits of the age, that his work will 
long survive him, and the more so because his mission 
was not so much to found a new school or system, as to 
teach men the method by which to arrive at truth. And 
thus he may be instrumental, indirectly, in leading others 
to the discovery of truths which he himself would not have 
admitted. 



LIST OF THE WRITINGS OF DR. WHATELY. 



The task of compiling a complete list of these writings 
is rendered extremely difficult by the fragmentary manner 
in which many of them appeared^ and his habit of joint 
composition with others. The following is by no means 
complete; but it is believed to contain the bulk of his 
avowed works, and to include some to which he only con- 
tributed his name and literary assistance, and others 
ascribed to him on good authority : with the dates of their 
first publication, so far as these have been ascertained. 

Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte . . . .1819 
Bampton Lectures : Use and Abuse of Party Feeling in Matters of 

Eeligion 1822 

Sermons. 1823 

Essays on some of the Peculiarities of the Christian Eeligion . . 1825 

Elements of Logic 1826 

Elements of Khetoric 1828 

Essays on the Writings of St, Paul 1828 

View of the Scripture Eevelations concerning the Future State . 1829 

Essays on the Errors of Eomanism 1830 

Eeverses: or, the Fairfax Family. By Mrs. Wbately . . . 1831 

Thoughts on the Sabbath 1832 

Evidence on Tithes 1832 

Thoughts on Secondary Punishments ...... 1832 

Eeply to Government Plan of National Education .... 1832 

Introductory Lectures on Political Economy 1832 

Speech on Jewish Disabilities . . . . . . . .1833 

Letter to Earl G-rey on Transportation 1834 

Charges and Tracts 1836 

Introductory Lectures on Christian Evidences . . . . 1838 



LIST OF THE WRITINGS OF BR. WHATELY. 473 

Remarks on Shakespeare. By Joseph Whately. With new Preface 1839 
Essays on some of the Dangers to Christian Faith .... 1839 

Speech on Transportation 1840 

The Kingdom of Christ Delineated 1841 

Easy Lessons on Reasoning ........ 1843 

Essay on Self-Denial ......... 1845 

Selected Tales of the Genii. By Mrs. Whately .... 1845 

Thoughts on the Evangelical Alliance 1846 

Speech on Irish Poor Laws . . . . . . . .1847 

Address on National Schools . ...... 

Address on Beneficence 

Preparation for Death : a Lecture .... ... 

English Life, Social and Domestic, in the Middle of the Nineteenth 

Century. By Mrs. Whately I847 

Religious Worship ........... 1847 

Search after Infallibility ...... . 1847 

Instinct: a Lecture . . . . . . . . .1847 

Four Additional Sermons ........ 1849 

Proverbs and Precepts, for copy lines 1850 

The Light and the Life, or the History of Him whose Name we bear. 

By Mrs. Whately 1850 

Chance and Choice, or the Education of Circumstances. By two of 

the Archbishop's daughters ....... 1850 

Letter on Religious Meetings ........ 1850 

Latter Day Saints . . . . . . . . . .1851 

Lectures on Scripture Revelations respecting Good and Evil Angels . 1851 
Lectures on the Characters of Our Lord's Apostles . . . .1851 

English Synonyms. By Miss Whately 1851 

Cautions for the Times. (Edited) 1851 

Address to Board of Education 1853 

Infant Baptism : with Additions . . . . . . .1854 

Introductory Lessons on Morals 1855 

Bacon's Essays : with Annotations 1856 

Scripture Doctrine concerning the Sacraments ..... 1857 

On the Bible and Prayer Book. (Edited) 1858 

Introductory Lessons on Mind .1858 

Introductory Lessons on the British Constitution .... 1859 
First Preaching of the Gospel. By Mrs. Whately .... 

Life of Christ. By Mrs. Whately 

Paley: a Lecture 1859 

Lectures on Scripture Parables ....... 1859 

Paley's Evidences ; with Annotations . . . . . H 1859 

Paley's Moral Philosophy : with Annotations . .... 1859 



474 LIST OF THE WRITINGS OF DR. WHATELY. 

The Parish Pastor 1860 

Lectures on Prayer. By a Country Pastor 1860 

The Jews: a Lecture 1861 

Historic Certainties. By Bishop Eitzgerald. Edited by the Arch- 
bishop 1861 

Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews . . . . . .1861 

Two Sermons 1862 

Habits: a Lecture 1862 

Election: an Essay .... ..... 1862 

Judgment of Conscience . . . 1864 

Dialogue on Repeal 

Miscellaneous Remains. Edited by Miss Whately .... 1864 



LONDON: PRINTED BY 

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 

AND PARLIAMENT STREET 



